Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

novagirl11 I like James Marsden, but I think this is the worst role I've seen him in. Claire Danes has a couple emotional performances, but it's not enough to redeem this intense, depressing mess of a movie

blakkdog I thought the film largely lacked tension even at points where there should have been and that combined with the teen coming-of-age perspective made it seem more like a scatter brained after school special then a serious movie about a kid finding herself. They left so many things disconnected and made illogical jumps from one thing to the next. Sara Bolger definitely comes off as too mature for a 15 year old and that throws you some, especially as they are trying to make her character precocious and much smarter (and more mature) then her dimwitted poor choice making mother. And there's no logical consistency from one point in the story to the next. Why do they set up her initial relationship with her long time best friend as if its her destiny and then he's basically removed from the movie other than post cards and a phone call? Whats with that clever scene where they are feeding the dogs and the boy says he wants this to work long term and doesn't want to do anything to risk it like more sex and then BAM shes on him again and hes fine with it and he's gone shortly after? Felt wrong. And her jumping into a car with high school jock dude after all the speeches about being disgusted by people like that and NOT being interested in the least. And getting date raped and then being furious with his friend but getting over it and jumping into bed with him? None of that worked for me. (And why would the jock/prom king cliché character even be interested in her! What was so special about her? Had he made a bet? She wasn't particularly pretty or alluring). Her character wasn't ditzy or insecure enough to justify her actions. They made her into this righteous wise young person who says all the right things and really seems to get it but her actions were completely alien to her character. You can have her be a precocious kid. Just don't have her be the one person in the film that the audience thinks understands the difference between right and wrong (because that character foil is necessary so she can be the counterbalance to her stupid immature parents who make endless dumb decisions). And then we are supposed to believe that the mom was a nun until just recently even though the entire movie she acts like a desperate slut and THATS why Lucy has decided to run out and screw different guys? Because her mom told her she hadnt until recently and she doesn't want to end up like that? No... Doesn't work... In the end the only message I got from this movie was parents can be dumb and immature and you can be smart and wise for your age but you should still have promiscuous sex with different people just so you don't end up regretting your relationship with your childhood best friend when you are older. Oh and is her name a reference to the Beatles song? That bothered me the whole film...I will say the sign I enjoyed the most (and the ONLY scene where I felt any worthwhile tension) was the well laid out dueling scenes where the mom runs into an confronts the man shes cheating with in the store with his family at the exact same time was Lucy's dad comes home unannounced and walks in on her having sex with a guy. The back and forth and increasing tension of both scenes worked well. Claire Danes was especially convincing emotionally during this scene. And we needed more of that kind of uncomfortable tension during the rest of the movie. The rape scene was much too easy to take and she just... gets over it after a while. What?! Are we supposed to assume in the end she going to go back to her original boyfriend once she is done exploring the world and getting with different guys? The movie needed to be more clear on that if so. They just leave that relationship out there. What they presented as destiny before no seems on hold or disconnected and you don't know what to think about it. All the post cards and calls but out she runs with other guys even though we are supposed to accept that shes a smart girl who makes better choices then her mom... And we are given no closure with the last boyfriend who we assume ran off after being attacked by her dad? and she doesn't seem effected by that. And the whole Mario thing creeped me out just slightly. Was he supposed to become a character in the movie? She dwelled on him a little too much for him to be just a chef on TV that inspires her.In the end, I enjoyed Bolger's performance but I don't think the movie fit together well and it ran flat without enough tension where the things that were being depicted clearly needed tension to make the audience uncomfortable and challenged. The dynamic with the mostly absent dad is overwhelmed by the dynamic with the slutty dumb blonde mom because shes there more often until she abandons her in the end for an old flame. Its not really a coming of age film its more a "My crazy nonsensical family life" film where the actions don't make complete sense.

Baleegh Shaw The story unfolds about a family living in suburbs of a major town in United States, having husband and wife and their daughter. Father being a lumberjack stays away from home for the majority of the time. He is from the old school and thinks that family is a bond which should remain intact at all times whatever the circumstances may be. The mother who works at a local advertising agency is often dressed up way too bold unlike a mother has to be dressed. The daughter is free bird who has a boy friend since her childhood and she remained focuses on him. During the time the father is at home everybody restricts their normal routine and stay close to him and once he leaves for his job they return to their normal lives. The mother who got married at an early age still thinks that she is a unmarried woman and likes to screwed around to her follow employee's, and she dressed up in a fashion that she is a teenager which she is not supposed to do. The daughter in the later part of the movie started changing her boy friend and started to screw around like her mother. The father one day caught the daughter while she was making love to his boy friend tries to hit her boy friend who in fact was a strong guy over powered the father and hit him. The daughter tries to console dad who slap her on her face and left back to work as an escape route. The mother found her college boy friend and ran away with him to Mexico. The daughter joins a café and started showing cooking lessons. Till now! It was about the movie and their role the actors played but in real life in Pakistan, it does not hold true as depicted in the movie. The bond of family is not so weak that if husband is working in some other city or he is working late it means that the wife should start acting like a prostitute and should be screwing and flirting around and the daughter is screwing entire class for that matter. Though the acting and setting was perfect and I gave this movie 9 out of 10.

Girish Gowda Sixteen-year-old Lucy (Sarah Bolger) is a tomboy. She gets on well with her father (James Marsden) but is frequently separated from him for months on end when he goes to work in Canada. Her relationship with her mother (Claire Danes) is easy-going and she takes care of most things around the house. She tunes into her sexuality and her not so 'stable' family dynamics. She develops a relationship with her best friend Kenny (Thomas Mann) and starts to realize that her parents' marriage is not as solid as she had previously imagined. She notices that her father's extended stays away from the family are not typical, and that her mother does not pine for her father as much as she herself does.After watching this movie, I feel like Sarah Bolger is a naturally talented actress. She can hold your attention the entire time she's on screen. The rest of the actors are all fine. This is a small compelling chapter in a young girl's life. Lucy doesn't shun the mainstream stereotypical look of girls, as much as she naturally develops into her own person with her own traits. She realizes that she doesn't have a 'stable' family per se and that she may be the only adult in her family. The parents, their actions, struggles, the guys at school, her falling in mutual love with the one person she knows she can trust outside of her family, her love for cooking, everything is quite realistic and a little depressing at times.Most of the characters are nuanced and as the story progresses, their outbursts come naturally. Each one is given enough time and material to let their personalities come through. Their actions aren't glorified, but neither are they demonized. It just comes off as understandable. Rape is one thing I simply cannot stand and Lucy should have made a complaint to make the boy pay, but we have seen/heard of that course of inaction a lot of times in real life. Her father telling the story of a mutilated saint just came off as ignorant of reality, but also highlighted his upbringing and the guilt he felt for having a child at such a young age. After Roger Ebert's passing, there's only one critic that I trust. He hasn't reviewed this movie, but I fail to understand the disdain and vitriol spewed against this charming coming of age tale by most of the other self-anointed 'critics'. This isn't a path-breaking tale, but it doesn't mean it doesn't have its own appeal.6.5/10