The Exploding Girl

I am always grateful to see films like "The Exploding Girl" that rely on an economy of cinematic technique to tell a story that is about very human topics in way that makes the viewer engage. It is eminently visual, as a move should be. Listening to the audio track would leave you with nothing grasp. The lack of explication only intensified the sense of youthful tragedy for things that go unsaid and opportunities missed. There's always a problem for some people about small, personal films like this one: they aren't big, flashy or hair-raising. What this film zeroed in on is the pain and uncertainty of youth, and especially of young love. To that end, it was poignant and dead on.

The only real problem I have to make about this film is that the filmmakers got too carried away with street-level camera shots that were willing to allow anything and anybody that intervened between the actors to stay in the shot, which resulted in a couple of overlong shots of blurred-out passersby or their body parts to obscure the characters. Okay, I get it that Ivy was just one more passenger on the train; but the indeterminate dark mass of fellow passenger blocking the shot for 15 or 20 seconds was just plain clunky.

I was expecting this movie to be good. It met my expectations in that regard. I wasn't expecting it to hit so close to my heart. I wanted so badly for the two characters to be together. The little subtleties of him feeding her soup when she was sick, her getting jealous that she was talking about other girls, her waiting for him to get home.. it was just so sweet. Those are the little things you notice when you fall in love.

10/10.

I've seen this film described as Mumblecore, I think it is a useful starting point to describe the film, though I think it has marked differences. Both this movie and Mumblecore movies in general concern relationships between young white heterosexual folks with relatively privileged upbringings, who are undergoing changes in their lives, or are stuck in the Doldrums hoping for the wind of change. The thing is that Mumblecore often has a warts and all approach, and a comic aspect. So you might get a boy and a girl having a conversation about the internet porn they watch. The difference with The Exploding Girl is that, largely the characters in this movie are shown in a positive light, employing a lot of discretion, and there's no attempt to tickle your funny bone, plus the movie often actually looks really good (as opposed to the hand-held shakiness of Mumblecore).

The two main characters are Ivy and Al. Ivy is studying at Ithaca, but on a break, whilst Al is a friend of many years who stays with her over the period. Al is studying evolutionary biology at college and talks about Goldschmitt's theory of hopeful monsters, which I thought was a really good metaphor for the stage of life Al and Ivy are at, i.e. going from being really good at being kids to learning how to be really good as adults. A hopeful monster is a missing link in evolution between different more steady lifeforms.

Ivy has seizures and is on medication so she has to be careful about drinking, which makes it difficult to engage with a lot of the party life and experimentation that happens at college. Al is sympathetic with this and so they spend time hanging together. Both of them have different romantic interests but seem to do have the potential to do really well together. They're both great young people, which is the thing I liked about the movie, that it showed how great they were. I liked the writing, little things like Al recording his own songs on a tape recorder, with rather overstated lyrics! I felt kinda envious at the end because I wished when I was that age I could have shown a girl the things I was proud about (and vice versa). At one point Al went to see a Zed and Two Noughts (described as an English film called Zoo) with some friends. I watched that alone at about the same age.

They're both pretty gentle and thoughtful. The main reason I wanted to write a comment about the film is that it made me feel like being a bit more gentle and thoughtful. Corollary to that was that I went out and bought a friend a doughnut. It had jam and cream in it, when I came back he said he didn't like cream.

He did a fun dyke film that is so sweet where that cute Brit chick is a mosnter! must see, this was really cute and fun and it moved at a pace that made you melt into the movie , really fun and endeared to me quite fondly!

Ivy (Zoe Kazan) is epileptic and returns home to Brooklyn on summer break from college. Her friend Al joins her to sleep on her couch when his room is rented out by his parents. She struggles to stay in contact with boyfriend Greg. Greg gets into a car accident with his high school friend Rebecca and decides to stay with her in the hospital. Ivy starts hanging out with Al.

Don't get me wrong. Zoe Kazan is lovely. She's beautiful and has a charm about her. It doesn't mean that watching her alone for most of the movie is particularly exciting. She has some interesting phone calls. She really needs the second to be in more of the movie and he needs to be played by somebody more compelling. I understand the idea of being alone in a crowded city and losing one's connection. However, this movie lacks the drive to propel it.