Lane 1974

Well made. Real. It's not often such a simple film grabs me with it's underlying complexity.

Very well made on a shoestring budget. Well directed AND acted. I was impressed. It's difficult to find quality without the glam these days so we tend to lose some of the realism, the place where depth of feeling resides. Thank you for a wonderful film!

I really enjoyed Lane's character as she navigates her mother's contrarian, irreverent forays into ever deeper abnormality. This was very relevant to me for personal reasons. A great reminder that children need stability and will rebel in order to get it. Lane's introspective journey was well portrayed. The visit with the grandparents was especially poignant. Being born into an anti-establishment family carries very different burdens for children and this film portrays them with great sensitivity and subtlety. There are very few films I'd watch twice but I'm considering making Lane 1974 an exception.

Maybe there's not a lot of room out there for something rather "classic" like this. It reminds me of some good French cinema; very unAmerican. Think ontological realism. I'm a person who happens to like films in which not much happens on the surface. No great plot here. But this is a very honest film about lost childhood. The young actress is superb and this filmmaker has taken their time to see through a humble, careful, quiet vision. It's how life is lived. I was mesmerized and even moved by this atypical look at a "coming of age" of a sort.

What an excellent, sometimes heart-rending film. It's not a "coming of age" story of the stereotyped first sex or first violence type, rather, the 13-year-old protagonist learns how unfair and unhelpful adults can be, and finally works up enough courage to try to improve her situation on her own.

Lane 1974 reminds each of us who care about others that no matter how crappy our own childhood was, it could have been just as crappy in a totally different fashion. It's set only a few years after my own era, but the 1970s California hippie, doper, back-to-nature culture is complete foreign to me, other than in film. And yet it was so well acted, both by Lane and her mother - who prefers to be called "Hallelujah" - and so well written and directed, that I believed every minute of it.

Watching it hurts, of course. Seeing a child go hungry makes me appreciate even that nasty powdered milk from the welfare department. It hurts just enough: I'm amazed at the delicate editorial touch that kept the film real without descending into constant, unrelenting pathos.

The film ends abruptly, but at exactly the right time. Not all is well, but there is hope. Kudos to everyone involved.