Palm Trees and Power Lines
From a viewer's perspective, most of the time you have to make a conscious decision to watch these kinds of movies. When you see a trailer or read a brief summary about a movie dealing with horrifying abuse, you know what you're getting into; the movie is going to deal with difficult subjects and it is likely going to make you feel strong emotions. It may not be a "fun" watch, but I think it's very important to seek these kinds of movies out.
Jamie Dack's directorial debut Palm Trees and Power Lines has the following logline: "A disconnected teenage girl named Lea enters a relationship with a man twice her age. Lea sees him as the solution to all her problems, but his intentions are not what they seem."
Just from reading these two short sentences, alarm bells are already ringing. This is not going to be a "fun" watch. So now you are putting your trust in the filmmakers to make something profound or thought-provoking about the topic. Surely if you're going to make a movie about this topic, you have a unique viewpoint or something useful to say that we don't already know about teenage girls being preyed on by older men, and we aren't just being subjected to seeing this abuse play out on screen for no reason.
After watching the movie, it feels a lot like the latter. Lea (Lily McInerny) is a disconnected and lonely suburban 17-year-old that meets and eventually gets in a relationship with 34-year-old Tom (Jonathan Tucker). Every action and word uttered by Tom is an ominous sign that Lea (being 17) doesn't seem to see, as she is captivated by his attention, perceived maturity, and claims that she is "not like all the other girls." For about 90 minutes, Tom slowly gains control and grooms Lea in the world's slowest-developing train crash, all leading up to the final event that goes (and shows) exactly where you are holding out hope that it doesn't go.
Dack has mentioned in interviews that she wanted the audience to understand how a girl could make the decisions Lea does in the movie. I'm tempted to say that the movie is painfully unsubtle about this, beating viewers over the head by an endless progression of manipulations, all but freeze-framing the movie with a "see what he's doing there?" caption every few minutes. I don't think the movie is saying anything new here, but if it even serves as a minor cautionary tale then fair enough.
The bigger sin is that Lea is such a poorly developed character that the movie becomes less about her story and more about her victimhood in general. Lea is mean to her mom, rude to her friends, and clearly above it all. Sure, not exactly unusual teenage behavior, but we literally don't know anything else about her. She is a blank slate, an easy target for Tom, and more of a case story for a grooming textbook than an actual, fully-developed human being.
And then there's the excruciatingly uncomfortable final 15 minutes. Dack says that "without that scene the movie really isn’t what it is," but I would've loved to hear some further elaboration on that point. Again, the question must be asked: did we really need to show all of that? It's a question that must be grappled with by any movie that decides to graphically show rape and assault. The fact that we don't get much in the way of how Lea thinks or feels about it makes it even more difficult to justify in this case.
The movie will undoubtedly connect with some, but it's hard not to feel that the subject deserved better. I can imagine many will leave this one asking themselves why this particular movie needed to be made.
