Review of Laggies (2014) by Flipje — 26 May 2021

E.M. Forster once wrote that 'we learn not from studying a book, but from enjoying it.' I apply this to movies as well. Forster loved the Brothers Karamazov but also Swiss Family Robinson. If you happen to love Himmel Über Berlin but also Our Idiot Brother, then fine, you're no better or worse than the rest of us, and you ingest and are edified by the high and mid and low brow alike.

And Laggies (for me, playful high brow) is my kind of film because of several reasons. First the actors. Sam Rockwell, Kiera Knightley and Chloe Grace Moretz. They are likeable, pleasant, and because their characters are never given cliched dialogue, we are never annoyed with the potential cinematic platitudes or telegraphed moments.

I never once cringed in this movie. Secondly, there is a genuine sense of character exploration here. While Rockwell is more or less 'the off the cuff' love interest, Knightley and and Moretz both have to become brave in themselves.

Their onscreen chemistry is great in that you feel the two characters, were they the same age, would have become fast friends. The end of the film satisfies because the audience is reassured that Knightley's Megan will become a right step-mother for Moretz's Annika.

The third, the teenagers in this movies look and sound like teenagers. These are not articulate, existential and pontificating Dawson's Creek teens or flashy, airbrushed shiny WB adolescents (basically adult actors playing teens).

The actors playing teens get it right here. Andrea Siegel gives them meat to work with and as a result their dialogue is realistically choppy, angsty and authentic. Screenwriters that can portray their characters in a genuine light get my vote.

The fourth reason I enjoyed this film is personal. I am a sucker for my own memories of the Pacific Northwest. I have family in Seattle and so it was nice to revisit this world. The other person reason is that I can relate to Megan.

There are many of us who haven't quite grasped the mechanics of adulthood in the same stride as our peers, many of whom are smug and self-satisfied (not all). Late bloomers bloom late. No big deal. Laggies is that movie ode to those that feel out of place in the company of friends racing towards each expected hurdle of growing old.

I sit through this movie recalling all those friends who enjoyed showing off the accoutrements of adulthood not because they enjoyed it but rather they hoped to show their 'earnings.' Megan's character is vulnerable because she dares to be uncertain and her adventure is overal satisfying.

Laggies to me is somewhere between Russian brooding heaviness novels and childhood romps. A pure pleasure and if happy endings are intolerable for you, there's always Ingmar Bergman.