Sophie Jones

Sophie Jones (Jessica Barr) is a teenager struggling with her sexuality. Underneath it all, she is struggling with the loss of her mother. This is an indie written and directed by Jessie Barr. This is a micro-indie. Apparently, Jessie and Jessica are cousins. This is a family affair. The acting is best described as naturalistic amateurism. It's almost docu-style. The film is technically sound. There are a couple of interesting scenes. I wouldn't say that I love this but as a first attempt, this does some interesting work. I hope that I'm wrong but I don't see a star making performance here. A diamond in the rough would make this material shine more.

Director Jessie Barr's smooth peer into teenage parental death feels refreshingly more Bergman than, well, a lot American directors. Her soft touch allows the viewer to feel and absorb through brevity of words versus peripatetic, loquacious ramblings. The lead and supporting actors lend a natural and intrusive peek into their lives that felt documented not contrived.

Contemplative and enjoyable.

There's a lot to admire here. The cast is uniformly excellent, especially the unknown young actors who genuinely look like high school students. And it's a handsome production despite what I'm guessing was a micro indie budget. The biggest problem I had with the film was Sophie herself (and Jessica Barr who plays her and is every bit as annoying as her screen personage). The character is a real pill, and I grew annoyed with her within the first 15 minutes. Accordingly, the 85-minute run time felt a lot longer. Maybe high school girls who see the film (will they even know it exists?) will have a different reaction. Overall it reminded me of an Eliza Hittman ("Never Rarely Sometimes Always") movie--esp Hittman's debut, "It Felt Like Love"--but not as good.

This has all the trademarks of Hallmark -- lily white, clean and scrubbed, upper middle class, suburban softcore malaise.

In other words, it oozes what we now call white privilege and entitlement. Even in its faux teen messiness, it feels trivial in its woe-is-me preciousness.

What's missing, thankfully, is that whenever the teen daughters seem vulnerable, that the single parent does NOT feel obligated to try to give them a comforting Mr. Cleaver style lecture that mysteriously makes everything feel alright.

Nonetheless, in that way, this is still more like Wonder Years for modern teens in the Pacific North West. If this movie's purpose was to remind us of the vapidness of whiny self-absorbed suburban teen white girls and flat-affected suburban teen white boys, then mission accompished. This story reeks with so-what-ism.

Sophie Jones is a simple and delicate film, with so much going on under the surface. The characters felt complex, authentic, and appropriately high school aged -- not only physically, but also with just the right amount of angst. It's one of those films that you can tell was birthed through real trauma and pain, but from someone who has done a lot of healing on the other side of that trauma. So, as an audience member, you feel taken care of. You trust the filmmaker to lead you into truth, and into a better place.