REVIEWS Hick REVIEWED BY ALLAN HUNTER


Lymelife director Derick Martini goes badly off the rails with his second feature Hick, an overly famil- iar coming-of-age drama that morphs into an unconvincing slice of blood-soaked Southern gothic nastiness. The adaptation of Andrea Portes’ novel does provide a showcase for the dramatic range of rising stars Chloe Grace Moretz and Eddie Redmayne but otherwise has few elements likely to beguile the average viewer. Hick represents an extremely difficult sell for


any potential distributor, especially in a theatrical market where it would struggle to make a favour- able impression. In terms of her emerging talent and the charac-


ter’s baby-doll wardrobe, Moretz is reminiscent of Jodie Foster at the time of her success in Taxi Driver. She plays Luli, a Nebraskan girl who is 13 going on 30. Abandoned by her white-trash mother and her


drunken father, Luli decides to head to Las Vegas armed with her sketch pad, a handgun and a rich fantasy life that includes a fondness for classic Hollywood dialogue. Does any 13-year-old really quote Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond and Dirty Harry lines? What begins in the vein of Juno (complete with


self-aware teen, excessive voiceover and twee drawings) then develops into a picaresque road movie as the travelling Luli encounters grifter Glenda (Lively), the sweet-natured Clement (Culkin) and psychotic cowboy Eddie (an impres- sive Redmayne).


The Oranges REVIEWED BY ANTHONY KAUFMAN


The clichés of US independent cinema are all too apparent in The Oranges, the debut feature from UK director Julian Farino: the voiceover narration of a disgruntled young person. Check. A holiday setting. Check. Catherine Keener and Oliver Platt as parents with eccentric habits (she is obsessed with Christmas; he loves gadgets). Check. A dys- functional family sent into disarray. Check. In the case of The Oranges, it is actually two


families who are living on the edge, the Wallings and the Ostroffs, best friends who live across the street from each other in a New Jersey suburb. When the beautiful prodigal daughter Nina Ostroff (Meester) returns home only to begin an affair with her father’s best friend, David Walling (Laurie), all hell — predictably — breaks loose. After one false start, that pivotal May-December


romance becomes more involved, and Nina and David decide to make a legitimate go of it. David’s wife, Paige (Keener), moves out but inexplicably, their post-collegiate daughter, Vanessa (Shawkat), sticks around at home, while Nina’s parents Terry (Platt) and Carol (Janney) watch in horror through their windows as the romance develops between these two people born in very different decades. One of the problems of the story is that the ori-


gin of the love affair is never fully explained. Why does Nina love David? And besides the fact she is pretty, what does David see in Nina? Other than someone to run along the beach with, do these


SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS


US. 2011. 95mins Director Derick Martini Production companies Stone River Productions, Taylor Lane Productions, Lighthouse Entertainment International sales Content Media Group, www.contentmediacorp. com Producers Steven Siebert, Christian Taylor, Charles De Portes, Jon Cornick Screenplay Andrea Portes, Derick Martini based on the novel by Portes Cinematography Frank Godwin Production design Roshelle Berliner Editor Mark Yoshikawa Main cast Chloe Grace Moretz, Blake Lively, Eddie Redmayne, Alec Baldwin, Juliette Lewis


Just when it seems like we might have a handle


on the film, it changes gear awkwardly once again to stray into Jim Thompson territory, as the pos- sessive Eddie becomes increasingly unhinged and violent. None of what is presented to us carries a great


deal of conviction and more often than not just seems odd rather than plausible. The lack of a


SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS


US. 2011. 92mins Director Julian Farino Production company Olympus Pictures/Likely Story International sales FilmNation, www. wearefilmnation.com Executive producers Ian Helfer, Jay Reiss, Stefanie Azpiazu, Sam Hoffman, Dan Revers Producers Anthony Bregman, Leslie Urdang, Dean Vanech Screenplay Ian Helfer, Jay Reiss Cinematography Steven Fierberg Editors Carole Kravetz, Jeffrey M Werner Music Klaus Badelt Production design Dan Davis Main cast Hugh Laurie, Leighton Meester, Catherine Keener, Oliver Platt, Allison Janney, Alia Shawkat, Adam Brody


two really have any reason for being together? And is David so blinded by love that he doesn’t sit down with his daughter, with whom he is still liv- ing, and have a serious discussion about what’s going on? More problematic is that Nina and David’s rela-


tionship is never fully addressed by the film-mak- ers. There are some jokes about the characters’ different ages — and Janney delivers a real whop- per about maturing male organs — but rarely does the script confront the psychologically knotty nature of such a relationship. All the actors do a fine job, particularly Allison


cohesive tone or any sense of great urgency leaves the film to limp along through a disjointed story that rarely catches fire. The film’s compensations come in the central


performances. The camera loves Moretz and Mar- tini frames her in close-ups allowing her to express a gamut of emotions from flirtation to fear, wistful longing to stoical endurance.


Janney as the overprotective mother who first dis- covers her daughter’s affair and has the best laugh lines. But all the characters are drawn a little too thinly to make for the kind of strong drama the film aspires to be. From a visual perspective, there is little that is


distinctive about the movie, which may come from Farino’s background in television — he has directed episodes of Sex And The City, Big Love and The Office. Like those projects, The Oranges should be a fine item for ancillary outlets, but it is difficult to see the film grow much beyond small-screen viewing.


n 4 Screen International at the Toronto Film Festival September 13, 2011


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