Laggies (2014)

I'm not a fan of romantic comedies and I find Chloë Grace Moretz a little obnoxious but Margaret and Getter have been so obsessed with Laggies I figured I'd give it a try. Worst case scenario, I'm just going to perv over Sam Rockwell, I told myself. To my surprise, I really enjoyed this film. 

Megan (Keira Knightley) is stuck. She is nearly 30-year-old, her friends have moved on with their lives, but she can't even figure out what she wants to do when she grows up. When her boyfriend (Mark Webber) proposes, she panics and uses a career seminar as an excuse to get away for a week. With no place to go, she ends up hiding in the home of her new 16-year-old friend Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz) who lives with her single father (Sam Rockwell).

It isn't a very believable story and it gets pretty far-fetched --I mean what kind of father would allow an almost 30-year-old woman stay in his house with his teen daughter? But most of all, who the f**k leave Sam Rockwell to become a lingerie catalogue model? WHO?--, there are also many holes and clichés of the romantic/coming-of-age genre, and yet it's a very engaging and entertaining story.

The film does a nice job depicting the unlikely friendship between an adult woman who is running away from her life and a teenage girl who is troubled by her mother's walk-out on her family. It's the kind of friendship that helps both women to grow and the chemistry between Keira Knightley and Chloë Grace Moretz (oh, by the way, she is not that obnoxious in this one) makes it work. 

A24

The romantic subplot between Megan and Annika's father, though predictable, is also very enjoyable. This subplot, however, deserved more screen time. First of all, Sam Rockwell is fantastic as Annika's father. He brings heart and charms --and a lot of hotness-- to the film; second, his chemistry with Knightley is so nice --but I guess a rock too would have a great chemistry with Rockwell-- and it was such a shame he had so little screen time. 

That being said, what I liked the most about the film was Keira Knightley's character. She is not always the most likeable character and she often makes decisions without even considering the effect of her choices on the people around her; she's quite a mess. But she is the kind of mess I could relate to. I'm turning 24 this year and while many if not all of you will say, what do you worry about? You're still young!, I too feel stuck. I don't know what I want to be when I grow up, I don't know what I'm doing with my life and my high school friends are in these years-long relationships, some are having babies and I'm like, I don't even know.

And to make it all worse, I wasn't even voted best gorgeousness in my senior year. WTF right?