I got on board with this movie back when the crowdfunding started, and have followed it all the way through til the premiere. Why? Because nobody frickin talks about Delco, and this movie is. It manages to piece together a genuine picture of what life was like as a teenager growing up in Delco - one defined by isolation, grittiness, and self-loathing. I grew up here, in fact, and took the very first opportunity I had to get out and never come back.
I went into this movie as somebody who hated this county, and oddly enough, by the end, I felt a new sympathy for Delco, largely because this movie asks the simple question, "why does everyone from Delco hate on it so much?"
I thought that it struck a careful balance between portraying Delco as a living stereotype and portraying Delco as a believable place that people live. The story is simple, well-rounded, and every plot thread that begins has an end somewhere - which is way more than I can say for movies that even A24 is releasing these days. Character development is easy to grasp, and religious themes are largely cursory; the conclusion of the story makes it clear that the lead character has to reach a new, less fundamentalist understanding of faith.
Scenes tend to run on in parts, but I liked that a lot of the ancillary characters were given enough airtime to actually have a real personality; it felt truer to most high school romp films that way.
All in all, I think this is a pretty good film. Delco is a character in the story, not the joke of it, and I think that's a meaningful distinction. It means that people outside of Delco will understand and be able to access the movie, but if you're from here or connected to here, you're guaranteed to have a real emotional connection. See it if you can.
