IT FELT LIKE LOVE (A-minus) - When we first see Lila, at the beach, she's wearing an excessive amount of sunscreen (or greasepaint) on her face that has dried into a pale white Kabuki mask. We will study that face for an hour and a half, as the teen tries mightily to be perceived as an experienced woman rather than as a kid. Near the end, she'll literally be wearing a mask during a dance routine (to a racy rap song), and we won't be any closer to seeing the real Lila inside. But we'll know her.
Filmmaker Eliza Hittman, in her feature debut, creates a dreamlike world full of wonder and peril, and everything in between, as we look over Lila's shoulder or stare past her pixie eyelashes into those yearning eyes of hers. Lila (doll-like newcomer Gina Piersanti) spends her days hanging with her sweet-sixteen pal Chiarra, who has a boyfriend and seems to be far more experienced sexually. Chiarra, lean and more overtly flirtatious than Lila, boasts of having slept with three other boys, but her reluctance to go below the belt with Patrick strongly suggests that she's lying about already having lost her virginity. Lila is the third wheel in the summer adventures, which includes breaking into a home near the beach, mainly just for grins, or just hanging out in the surf (it looks like Coney Island).
Lila steals some of Chiarra's one-liners to do some boasting of her own to her neighbor pal, a younger boy. ("He went down on me," she claims about a supposed beach hookup, sounding more confounded than confident. "But he needs practice.") Hittman isn't shy about exploring teenage intimacy, and her camerawork is mesmerizing. It's as if the camera becomes one of the intimates, entwining itself in the clumsy passion. The makeout sessions between Chiarra and Patrick are surprisingly innocent, with a lot of tender kissing and simple stroking of bodies. I don't think I've seen a more boldly intimate (yet nearly chaste) film; it sweeps you up into its swirl of adolescence.
Lila, aching for that human contact, spots an older boy at the beach, Sammy (Ronen Rubinstein, perfectly cast as another Channing Tatum clone), and pursues him. She has barely a clue about how to seduce someone and even less game. She visits him at the gaming center where he works, tries flirting by text and crashes one of his parties with Chiarra. While Lila lacks the wiles of a woman, she's smart and calculating, and she tries to make Sammy think that he passed out after the party and slept with her. As she diligently tries to implant herself in Sammy's world of pot, fellow goons and disposable girls, Lila flirts with danger.
Hittman uses Lila's dog in sometimes obvious ways to parallel the girl's story. The dog is somewhat abused by Lila's uncaring father -- when he forgets to buy dog food, he just lets the pup eat from the garbage -- and I've never seen such an expressive face on an animal (as when Lila is dragging it outside by the collar). Lila clings to the dog like a child does, luring it into bed with her, and we fear that one of them will be harmed in some way. When it comes time for Lila's showdown with Sammy and two of his pals, one of them literally commands her, as if to a dog, to "sit," pushing the boundaries of how far she will let them degrade her. How far will Lila's insecurities take her?
The film builds to a truly terrifying climax. You want to leap into the screen and rescue her from the brutes; hug it out with her and reassure her that this is not the way to grow up. Hittman finds layers in these interactions. She discovers an interesting balance between making the young men ugly thugs but sort of understanding how these simpletons would be tempted to toy with such a willing "seductress."
This is a brilliant debut, rivaling the litany of French filmmakers who have made this subject their hallmark.
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