A good movie

This movie was actually picked up by someone from my film club and, to be honest, I had no idea what to expect. Since it did receive some good reviews (especially from Indiewire), I was quite intrigued though. It’s interesting that we all had some very specific and really personal connection with this movie after all. As far as I was concerned, even if I’m a parent myself, I actually completely identify with Jeremy. Indeed, I had some kind of mental checklist and, well, everything he did, I did it as well at some point or another. As a result, I failed to see what was so wrong about him. Or maybe I was in a worse shape than I thought back then? And what about all my friends who got in so much more trouble than me back in those days? Were they all hopeless causes then? The only big difference between Jeremy and I was that he apparently said that he could set the house on fire with everyone inside, a thought which obviously never crossed my mind. However, this statement seemed so extreme and there was nothing in his behavior that actually indicated that he might do something like this. Basically, they kept hammering the fact that he was impossible to deal with but, to be honest, I didn’t really see that. It also had to do with the fact that we got like zero background information. Was he born in Canada or in Hungary? What was the deal with his biological father? Was he still in the picture? He was also displayed as completely alone and asocial but this was also contradicted later on. I was also amazed that none of his parents had an actual conversation with him through the whole duration. His (step)father did give him a sweet hug to calm him down at some point but there was no physical contact with his mother and zero conversation between the 3 of them. The structure was also rather confusing and I’m not sure if I cared for this artistic choice. Basically, there were 2 storylines. One in the 90’s during which Sasha was a little girl and apparently recalled a summer during which her parents were clearly struggling with her big brother. The other one was taking place in the present, Sasha was now an adult and she was a film director making a film about a case she was investigating which was the same/very similar to her own brother. To make it all even more confusing, both storylines were blurred at some point. Well, most of it, I didn’t figure it at all while watching this movie, I had to do some research afterwards to get a better grip on this film. Anyway, it was still a strong and evocative drama, no doubt about it.