This slice of life film is about the struggles of a teenage girl named Maggie to reach some kind of equilibrium in her life is both beautiful and thoughtful. It follows Maggie's progress through the course of perhaps several weeks of her teenage existence, desperately trying to take care of her baby Lucy, balance her relationship with her mother, while trying attain some sort of normal teenage/adult social life.
The real star of this film is Kim Schnitzer, who plays her role as Maggie so naturally that you fall effortlessly into the reality of her character. She is the central focus of the film and camera, and she is well up to the role, as well as Gordon Schmidt who plays her boyfriend equally naturally.
The sparse dialogue is very realistic, there is no witty impossibly perfect dialogue nor are there any special effects, just Maggie left to make her own mistakes, missteps, and misjudgments. The kind that are typical of a real girl in her situation, and not some Hollywood scriptwriter's approximation of what might be imagined as the challenges of a teenager. It is through the choices Maggie makes and her struggles that the real strength of her character and desperation are revealed.
I highly recommend watching this if you enjoy slice of life films. People used to fast paced action films will complain that it is too slow moving, but if you can sit back and let the story unfold like real life does, then you will find the heart of this movie and be moved by it.
Director Henner Winckler overcomes what must have amounted to a modest budget by using completely natural settings and by keeping the camera firmly focused on the highly expressive face of Kim Schnitzer. I give this film 10 of 10 in this genre of film.
