Try Seventeen

This is quite possibly the stupidest movie I've ever seen. It starts out ok, it seemed like it could have gone somewhere, but the plot is basically non-existant. So much symbolism and surrealism and so little substance. Underdeveloped one dimensional relationships being blown up into some huge drama that makes no sense. Goofy comedic interludes that are so out of synch with the central focus of the film they make it seem like you're flicking channels. Not that there's much of a focus there anyway. The script seems fairly intelligent at first, but winds up seeming like a 15 year old's failed attempt at being profound.

The seventeen years old newcomer in town Jones Dillon (Elijah Wood) drops out the university on his first day, after a problem with his roommate, and decides to rent an apartment in an old building. Jones pays one year rental at once for the 2B apartment and his only possessions are a trunk and a typewriter that belonged to his unknown father. Jones spends his time fantasizing his life, writing never-sent-letters to his absent father and discussing by phone his childhood and family problems with his alcoholic mother (Elizabeth Perkins), who lives in Texas. He becomes friend of a painter cowboy, who lives on the first floor, and of the aspiring actress Lisa (Mandy Moore), who lives in the apartment 2A on the same floor. Jones has a crush on the temperamental photographer Jane (Franka Potente), who lives in apartment 2C. After a car accident, Jones reaches the maturity and resolves the outstanding problems of his life. 'Try Seventeen' is a kind of love-hate movie. My wife, for example, just watched half of the story and gave-up to see the second part. I liked this film, about a young man leaving adolescence and finding his own path. The viewer has to keep in mind that Jones's neighbors are indeed Lisa and Jane, otherwise it would be very hard to believe that a guy would have Mandy Moore and Franka Potente available on the same floor. There is comedy, romance and drama in this sensitive story well directed by Jeffrey Porter. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): 'Era Tudo o Que Eu Queria' ('This Was Everything That I Wanted')

I have to admit,on first hearing about this film I wasn't too keen on it and was thinking that it was going to be one of those teenybopper films. When I actually saw this film for the first,I was amazed how it's really not how I thought.I was a good film.And the soundtrack,I must say,is pretty darn good too. The story line is easy enough to follow,even for me,and the characters are all simple and likeable. Just one thing bugs me.Why change the title to 'All I Want'?In the film,I'm pretty sure no one says the line 'All I Want',however when Jones talks to Brad,he says the line 'Try Seventeen'.It's a memorable line!Why change the title?It would be more memorable (and great) as 'Try Seventeen'. All in all,great film.See it.And hopefully,get the soundtrack!

*First ever comment

Try Seventeen, or the title I bought the movie under, All I Want (I like try seventeen better) is a misunderstood story. I originally bought this movie because of Elijah Wood (he's very cute). I was seventeen at the time, and I totally understood this movie. It's about a boy trying to cope with life as he knows it. He tries to escape by pretending and lying about things, and not only to other people, but to himself. He put himself in imaginative situations where he would be the hero and everything would work out for him as he wanted it to. Oddly enough, I found myself daydreaming the same kind of scenerios, and I still often do. SO no, this movie isn't for everyone, but it is a very understandable storie if you open your mind to it. I related to it very well because I was sort of the same. So don't be close-minded about movies such as this!

This is a very sensitive and original `coming of age' film, centered around a seventeen-year-old boy seeking to find meaning in his life. His mom had been, in her youth, a self-absorbed, dope-smoking and thrill-seeking Bohemian, who fell for an equally superficial and pretentious pseudo-intellectual of the writer variety, and by the time he went out for a pack of cigarettes never to return, she had found herself pregnant. That would have been the end of her story had mom been a pauper, but her family had money, so by the time the story opens the son had been shuttled around through every prep-school in the country. He never knew his father, and what he knew about his mother was that she never grew up.

What little his mother would say about his father were myths, which he clings to desperately in this story. Had his father `really' been a writer? All he has for proof is an old typewriter, on which he tries to write letters to his father that are never mailed. The whereabouts of the father are not known. Estranged and alienated from his parents, he ends up in an apartment where he can begin to find himself through associations with others who have complicated stories of their own to share. Not surprisingly, he falls in love with an older woman who is much like his mother: self-absorbed and addicted to dysfunctional relationships. Almost as though to redeem his mother through the woman, he tries to prove himself the better man to her, in contrast to the slick and quick former boyfriend, with his leather clothes and hot guitar. He is a nice guy that wants to finish better, not last. It is a very mature and well-crafted story.