Film

It’s hard to decide what is most annoying about this overheated drama. You might be leaning toward the nearly obsessive use of arty slo-mo shots of leaves falling, dandelion fluff drifting through the air and whatnot; then the script throws some on-the-nose dialogue at you (“When is it all gonna start?” “What?” “Our lives…” goes one ripe exchange between two teen girls, just before a Columbine-like shooting spree clears up that riddle for one of them). But wait, have you fairly rated the annoyance of the tick-tock flashback/flashforward rhythm? And what about the sheer waste of talent like Wood and Thurman?

The whole film is built on a patently false contrivance. Slutty bad-girl teen Diana (Wood) and her devoutly religious good-girl BFF Maureen (Amurri) are in the girls’ bathroom when a troubled teen goes on a shooting rampage. He bursts in and, in a move that defies everything we know about spree killers, offers them the choice of which of them he’ll kill. Cue the flash-forward to Diana 15 years later (now played by Thurman), still dealing with traumatic stress. Flash back to younger Diana before the shooting. She’s getting high, banging a trashy older guy, getting pregnant and having an abortion. Flash forward: Trauma. Flash back: Bad behavior with expressions of concern from Maureen. Repeat. Oh, and throw in a trick ending that finally makes explicit the underlying reactionary morality of the film. So many annoyances, so little time.