Grow Up

The protagonist doesn't act on any potential romantic or sexual feelings w/r to her sixth form aged friend/s, as I did at her age to my daily regret and shame some 10 years later... Somehow the discourse of the film feels very UK-specific, though with characters from mixed heritages, so maybe that's party why it clicked with me.

The protagonist has a crisis and spends time with teenagers and is more confused than them? There were moments in between that I enjoyed enough. Liked the spirit but then...it has a lot of background noise, hums, hisses, noisy crowds that can be distracting and sometimes hard to hear dialogue (especially in the opening scene).

More effort could have been put in to prevent that, such as using a shotgun mic that focuses on sound only in the direction it is pointed. I watched because I had nothing better to do and wanted to know how it ended. Was tempted more than once to switch it off.

I'd give this student film 2.4 stars. Although the sound design has some serious issues (with dialogue being almost imperceptible for some scenes) I still found this an engaging bittersweet little experience. This was mainly due to the script which captures the tension of young adulthood where (if in a state of arrest) you still feel emotionally connected to 16/17-year-olds but this is socially (if not always legally) policed as paedophilic.

Grow Up soon goes off the rails, its plot becoming more contrived and characters increasingly erratic. Then again, even if the film doesn't leave much to ponder past the closing credits, it's enjoyable while it's unfolding, doing justice to the strengths of the directors expanding filmography.

I liked this. Maybe it says something about my own lack of maturity. Lol. I could relate to Keira's aimless 18 year old character, floating through life and not having a good grip of who she is or what she wants in life. The relationship with Annika was also nicely done. I think the two were very good on screen together. Even though it may be a low budget film, it's really nice. Well done!