Review of The First Time (2012) by Panayiota K — 16 Apr 2016

One of the characters in the film mentions that maybe the idea of sex is better than the actual action: perhaps that applies to the idea and execution of this movie too. The First Time is hardly the first time a teenage drama dealing with the idea of sex has been made, but for what it is, it works.

It's not as refined, and definitely not as impactful, as other Sundance coming-of-age darlings (The Spectacular Now, Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, etc.), but it mostly gets the job done. It sometimes seems to head into made-for-TV quality, notably in basically any scene featuring teenage characters other than the two leads, but it never becomes too cringeworthy.

The real driving force of this movie is the aforementioned two leads, played by Dylan O'Brien and Britt Robertson. The pair share wonderful chemistry (which ultimately ended up blooming off-screen too), and their banter in certain scenes is almost undeniably adorable.

They really manage to elevate the material they're given, which isn't always the best. Writer/director Jon Kasdan has lots of good ideas here, such as immediately thrusting us into the story with no real back story for either lead, but his dialogue is often pretty on-the-nose.

If that kind of familiarity doesn't bother you, and you don't mind spending an hour and a half with this kind of story, The First Time isn't a bad time.