Palo Alto

The aching list­less­ness and the naiveté of the teen expe­ri­ence are unit­ed to exas­per­at­ing effect in this styl­ish mood piece from new­com­er direc­tor Gia Cop­po­la which she has adapt­ed from a nov­el writ­ten by James Fran­co. But be pre­pared to put aside your pre­con­cep­tions of the unre­lent­ing Fran­co con­tent machine as Cop­po­la does her lev­el best with his dis­tinct­ly aver­age source material.

Influ­enced by her aunt Sofia, Gia casts a woozy spell via an assured aes­thet­ic which superbly high­lights the dreams and hopes of each of the kids we meet. A giant poster of The Vir­gin Sui­cides sits neat­ly on the wall of one of the bed­rooms, were the fam­i­ly con­nec­tion not clear enough. Though set in the present day, the rites of pas­sage ring true on var­i­ous mul­ti-gen­er­a­tional lev­els. There’s no spe­cif­ic rev­o­lu­tion and noth­ing to fight against, but there’s still rebel­lion and angst a‑plenty.

Cop­po­la seems more inter­est­ed in con­vey­ing the teen expe­ri­ence on a uni­ver­sal lev­el and infus­ing those feel­ings with an every­day poet­ry. Yet, the char­ac­ters are sim­plis­ti­cal­ly drawn and exist in a vague in-between world. April (Emma Roberts) is strug­gling to choose between an old­er guy, her foot­ball coach (played by James Fran­co who is extra­or­di­nar­i­ly creepy) and a boy her own age, Ted­dy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val who also makes a brief appear­ance), who she smokes with at par­ties but is too shy to find out if he rec­i­p­ro­cates her feelings.

Ted­dy is on a learn­ing curve him­self, and after get­ting a DUI he begins com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice at a library and, lat­er, at an elder­ly care home where he dis­cov­ers com­pas­sion and enhances his draw­ing skills. How­ev­er, he still insists on hang­ing out with Fred (Nat Wolff, turn­ing in an extreme­ly con­fi­dent per­for­mance) who seems intent on self-destruc­tion. Fred starts a liai­son with Emi­ly (Zoe Levin) who is shack­led with the moniker of school slut.

It is dis­heart­en­ing that Cop­po­la has cho­sen to assign her female char­ac­ters with the reduc­tive virgin/​whore traits to sym­bol­ise per­son­al growth, but this is rather a fault of the source mate­r­i­al and per­haps indica­tive of the fact that girls are still sad­ly fight­ing this bat­tle at high school. Cop­po­la does, how­ev­er, allow her female char­ac­ters to have some fun, par­tic­u­lar­ly in her involv­ing and involved par­ty sequences.

Mean­while, the boys rev­el and learn through their doped up chats in cars and devel­op­ing artis­tic expres­sion, even though their paths are often at odds. The dark­ness and styl­i­sa­tion of Fran­cis Ford Coppola’s The Out­siders creeps in through Fred with his wild yet deeply sin­cere ram­blings rem­i­nis­cent of Ponyboy.

Coppola’s depic­tion of the adult world is espe­cial­ly effec­tive, with their loud, over­bear­ing voic­es and opin­ions sneak­i­ly tak­ing the view­er out of the haze of the con­tem­pla­tive teen state of mind. More than any­thing, Cop­po­la impres­sive­ly evokes the ennui and uncer­tain­ty of teen life and her exquis­ite world-build­ing skills cou­pled with the atmos­pher­ic music pro­vid­ed by Dev Hynes and Rooney ensure this dreamy piece remains cap­ti­vat­ing throughout.