I have to disagree with those who didn't like the film. I saw it at Tribeca as well and I thought it was terrific. That said, I think one's perspective on this film has a lot to do with what you bring to it.
If your own adolescent experience was intensely emotional and you were sexually active at a young age, then this film feels like someone stole your diary. Yes, scenes are highly charged and the characters' reactions are large. But if you lived it, you reacted that way yourself.
As I watched it, I felt that I had been in the place of almost every character at one point or another: the inexperienced person overwhelmed with jealousy and with a terribly romantic idea of love, the hyper-experienced person shunned and judged for their choice outside the bounds of "normal", an average member in thrall to the charismatic leader, and the manipulative leader who fears the loss of their group if anyone exits or enters without permission. I played each and every one of those roles somewhere between time I was 16 and 21.
Ultimately, this is a film about our petty obsessions and the intensity with which they rule our lives. If you loved reading Scott Spencer's "Endless Love", Nabokov's "Lolita", Patrick Süskind's "Perfume", or "The Witching Hour" by Anne Rice, you will probably be drawn to this world.
If your own adolescent experience was intensely emotional and you were sexually active at a young age, then this film feels like someone stole your diary. Yes, scenes are highly charged and the characters' reactions are large. But if you lived it, you reacted that way yourself.
As I watched it, I felt that I had been in the place of almost every character at one point or another: the inexperienced person overwhelmed with jealousy and with a terribly romantic idea of love, the hyper-experienced person shunned and judged for their choice outside the bounds of "normal", an average member in thrall to the charismatic leader, and the manipulative leader who fears the loss of their group if anyone exits or enters without permission. I played each and every one of those roles somewhere between time I was 16 and 21.
Ultimately, this is a film about our petty obsessions and the intensity with which they rule our lives. If you loved reading Scott Spencer's "Endless Love", Nabokov's "Lolita", Patrick Süskind's "Perfume", or "The Witching Hour" by Anne Rice, you will probably be drawn to this world.