“You can’t keep putting aside what you want for some imaginary future. You’ve gotta suck it up and go with you gut,” said Megan.
Megan (Keira Knightley), stuck in her quarterlife crisis, was overeducated, but ironically, unemployed. She got no certainty—she hesitated to accept her boyfriend’s proposal, even, witnessed her father cheated behind her mother. All pain and no gain, she left and accidentally met Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz), a teenager whose life might inspire Megan. That’s that.
Compiling premises of quarterlife crisis drama and generation-gap drama, Laggies basically had a smart move. Andrea Seigel’s script found sufficient space to work on the sympathetic theme by exploiting the ‘working’ bridge—the spirit of escapism: bringing back the youth to get away from being an adult. Knightley’s sympathetic performance easily lifted the bar while she’s bonding an ambient chemistry with Moretz; the duo effortlessly nailed it before the half time.
Lynn Shelton’s lithe direction brought the vision well from feminine perspective; however, the script wasn’t as neat as it was in the beginning. A little spark in the middle didn’t work quite effectively as if it dogded the initial premises into nowhere. It resulted in lame an eventual lame storytelling with no worth resolution offered in the end.
If it wasn’t fueled by Knghtley’s vibrant performance, Laggies would end up being a banal indie movie with stars (although, it was still a banal romance comedy, in the end). Moretz’s performance could also be a lot better if the script gave her enough space. In conclusion, it’s a kind of film that wasn’t sustainable without the stars; luckily, the star was excellent.
VERDICT: Good premises, promising direction, but poor script make Laggies a lame drama; only Knightley’s portrayal of a woman with quarterlife crisis gave some fresh air.
Laggies (2014)
Comedy, Romance Directed by: Lynn Shelton Written by: Andrea Seigel Starred by: Keira Knightley, Chloe Grace Moretz, Sam Rockwell Running Time: 99 mins Rated R for language, some sexual material and teen partying
Leave a Reply