LOL Movie Review

LOL (2012)

Rent LOL on Amazon Video
Written by: Lisa Azuelos & Kamir Ainouz (screenplay), Lisa Azuelos, Nans Delgado("LOL Laughing Out Loud" movie)
Directed by: Lisa Azuelos
Starring:  Miley Cyrus, Douglas Booth, Ashley Greene, Nora Dunn, Jay Hernandez, Thomas Jane, Demi Moore
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
Lola's heart is broken by her boyfriend, but soon she's surprised by her best friend, promising musician Kyle, who reveals his feelings for her.

Verdict
I don't even know what this is. It uses all the usual teen movie cliches while simultaneously sexualizing teens and criticizing them for being sexual. It relates to teens worse than Steve Buscemi undercover at a high school. The dialog is garbage. the story is so shallow it's gibberish. There is no single redeemable quality of this movie. It is an utter waste of time.
Skip it.

Review
This is based on a 2008 French movie with the same director. This was filmed in 2010, but wasn't release in 2012. When movies are good, studios don't wait two years. There was no promotion for this. It was released only because of a technicality in the contract.

My biggest gripe with this movie is that Lola states up front that, "Everyone calls me Lol." Only one time in the entire movie is she called Lol. I started keeping track after I heard multiple people call her Lola, invalidating her quote. It's a cheap tie in to LOL for no good reason. On top of that is the title referencing laugh out loud, the nickname Lol, or lots of love. It's not clear, not that it matters. It's just the only thing this movie provided that even resembled entertainment.

This has a lot of exposition, but in one of the first scenes Lola breaks the fourth wall and states how the scene is in slow motion because that's how hot girls always appear in movies. I didn't know why this was breaking the fourth wall and that's the only time it happens, making it even more bewildering.

Chad is with Lola and to commemorate that achievement they write their names on the unisex high school bathroom wall. Ignoring that entire statement, I've never seen so much graffiti in bathroom, nor seen it done so neatly.

After summer, Chad tells Lola he hooked up with a camp counselor. They act like they don't have cell phones and were unable to communicate all summer. Why did he say this other than to jump start the plot? There is no lead in, he just casually drops that bomb. The dialog is terrible, Lola's reply to that bombshell is, "I did too." That's what this movie offers.

Miley Cyrus plays Lola, or Lol according to the character.

Demi Moore is introduced as the mom in the bathtub with the younger daughter. Then Miley disrobes completely in front of both of them to get in the shower. No shame in that family game, group bath time. A family conversation then proceeds. Is that a French thing?

At 6 minutes and 27 seconds I realized I hate this movie. We get a lot of scenes about side characters. I never got it. It just makes the movie longer and adds nothing. I don't know who the star of this is, trig lover, Lola, or Kyle? I don't care about any of them. I don't know if seeing each of their stories is better or worse than seeing just one story. Who made that decision? Who made any of these decisions.
The trig teacher is John from Cincinatti!, a show created by David Milch who did NYPD Blue and Deadwood. It's not a good show, but it is an interesting premise.

I watched this on Amazon Video, but  it frequently looks fuzzy, not as in low bitrate, but just a weird camera affect.

Kyle and Lola.

This is just a step or two away from being a comedy. It's got all the cliches, but it's trying to play them straight instead of making fun of them.
You get an idea of what this is attempting when it tries to connect teen problems to adults problems, but it's done so poorly. This is so shallow that it doesn't work at all. I thought this movie was about the divide between parents and teens and how social media factors in, but that's just not true. I've never hoped for an apocalypse to wipe out all the characters in a movie until now.

There's an unnecessary France trip, and a little kid that looks like Joan of Arc, complete with a reference. Why? It's just random filler at this point.Is this movie irredeemable? Yes. It's completely tone deaf, seemingly written by someone whose only knowledge of teens is derived from '80s teen movies. I completely understand why no one wanted to release this.