A laggie sounds like it might be an affectionate British term for what Americans call a slacker, but it may just be an invention of director Lynn Shelton or her screenwriter, Andrea Seigel, referring to someone who has not made much forward progress in life. This would describe 28-year-old Megan (Keira Knightley), who is doing menial work for her indulgent father (Jeff Garlin) and hanging out with her old high school friends despite signs — signs too heavily underlined by the script — that they’ve grown apart. When her longtime boyfriend wants to move forward (by marrying her) and she catches her father cheating on her mother, she retreats.
She does this unconventionally, by hanging out with 16-year-old Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz) and her friends and lying to her boyfriend about her whereabouts. Shelton and Seigel make this unlikely scenario more plausible that it might seem, and work in themes of parental abandonment, infidelity, and teen drinking — and a pet turtle — while making the story cohesive. Sam Rockwell plays Annika’s divorced dad; while Knightley only has a handful of scenes with him, they’re charming enough to credibly set up the later plot developments.
Set in and around Seattle, this is billed as a comedy, and it is funny at times, but it seemed to have almost as much dramatic impact as Shelton’s last film, Your Sister’s Sister. In both cases, she pushes characters together in ways that surprise us —save for the cliché ending — and makes it work.
IMDb link
viewed 11/7/14 4:15 pm at Ritz 5 and posted 11/7/14
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