User reviews

I usually love this genre of coming of age movie, but this film put me to sleep, so I missed half of it. There was way too much moralizing by the adult actors, especially the "Grandpa" and I never did figure out what all the conflict between the adults was all about. or care about it. Maybe that was because I snoozed. Whatever! I didn't like any of them and certainly didn't like their mistreatment of their daughter. I even disliked the dog! One exception to the horrid characters and bad acting was the Black woman, I never figured out what her role was... at first I thought Grandpa's new wife, or girl friend or house keeper or nurse??? She was likeable.

So why give it six stars? Well, mostly because of Luana, played by Peyton Kennedy. I mean, I tuned into this movie as a Coming of Age movie and Luana was an interesting character, understandable, believable in her role. I did care about her and felt bad about her losses. So she gets seven stars and the rest of the film gets one star. Do the math!

I actually liked it quite well. Maybe a bit slow in th ebeginning... but very good character study. Good coming-of age movie too. (The girl is a bit old to play a 12 year old maybe. I looked it up, the actress was 16?). But all really well played, by all of them. The gradndad was really cool. The music, even though repetitive, very atmospheric. Really atmospheric scenes too (the one with the fire dancing!!) So, all in all .... a bit slow, but which can be good becuase we get to know the characters, but very well acted and very atmospheric drama about a family, about growing up, about values, about life lessons.