Saw this back at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival
Palm Trees and Power Lines is directed by Jamie Dack and it's a story about a disconnected teenage girl enters a relationship with a man twice her age. She sees him as the solution to all her problems, but his intentions are not what they seem. Starring actors Lily McInerny and Jonathan Tucker. Based on the short film also with the same name and by Dack, it felt really more of a longer filler version of the short film. Dack is trying her best to capture a disturbing realistic portrayal about a relationship between a young girl and an older man that becomes much more then we thought about. But due to a storyline that feels repetitive and lazy, it didn't take the serious subject matter to it's advantage and become a snooze fest.
Mclnerny and Tucker both give good performances and there are some good camerawork displayed. I do appreciate Dack choosing actors who fit the characters role properly. But the story needs work. The characters are lazy and unbearable at times. Some of the dialogue feels really fake and forced. As if an adult doesn't really understand how young people talk in this modern day of age. Certain choices from the characters was really idiotic and annoying which made me lose my interesting and focus on the character. The lightening at certain moments were really too dark to see what is happening because of budget issues which I can forgive for those reasons. But there is a lot of potential that is missed and I really do feel like this movie would have been an disturbing hidden gem just like "Never Rarely Sometimes Always" which this movie reminded me of that hidden gem. But it didn't work as well.
Dack is good for what is trying to do but I honestly was disappointed.
Rating: C-
Palm Trees and Power Lines is directed by Jamie Dack and it's a story about a disconnected teenage girl enters a relationship with a man twice her age. She sees him as the solution to all her problems, but his intentions are not what they seem. Starring actors Lily McInerny and Jonathan Tucker. Based on the short film also with the same name and by Dack, it felt really more of a longer filler version of the short film. Dack is trying her best to capture a disturbing realistic portrayal about a relationship between a young girl and an older man that becomes much more then we thought about. But due to a storyline that feels repetitive and lazy, it didn't take the serious subject matter to it's advantage and become a snooze fest.
Mclnerny and Tucker both give good performances and there are some good camerawork displayed. I do appreciate Dack choosing actors who fit the characters role properly. But the story needs work. The characters are lazy and unbearable at times. Some of the dialogue feels really fake and forced. As if an adult doesn't really understand how young people talk in this modern day of age. Certain choices from the characters was really idiotic and annoying which made me lose my interesting and focus on the character. The lightening at certain moments were really too dark to see what is happening because of budget issues which I can forgive for those reasons. But there is a lot of potential that is missed and I really do feel like this movie would have been an disturbing hidden gem just like "Never Rarely Sometimes Always" which this movie reminded me of that hidden gem. But it didn't work as well.
Dack is good for what is trying to do but I honestly was disappointed.
Rating: C-