Flipped

I've recently gotten the feeling (especially after watching LET ME IN a few weeks ago) that it'll be quite difficult for a filmmaker to ever find a way to give a tough, heart-wrenching treatment to an adolescent love story. If you're working with actors who are maybe 14 or 15, it's not just the fact that you could be crossing legal lines if you delve too much into sexuality, but also, there's the fact that having something too dark or disturbing happen may be "too much" for the young actors or for the audiences (or for both). While I can't quite say that FLIPPED breaks a lot of ground in terms of a teen love story entering deeper-than-usual emotional waters, it's a great step in a good direction: the film teems with the innocence of its two leads, yet it isn't scared to let the emotional demons out, and for a PG-movie about two teenagers who may or may not be in love, that's impressive.

"All I ever wanted was for Juli Baker to leave me alone," says 15-year-old Bryce (Callan McAuliffe) during a voiceover in the first few minutes of FLIPPED. Ever since they were little kids, Juli (Madeline Carroll), whose name is spelled like that because it's short for Julianna, has held on to her schoolgirl crush on Bryce, who is very much not interested in Juli, and instead worries about all the embarrassment he has to deal with her going ga-ga over him, particularly once middle school starts. One of the best things about FLIPPED is that Juli's infatuation is never an annoyance; instead, it's super cute and heart-warming. When she sniffs his hair, it doesn't feel creepy, and when she goes to his house and we hear her express in a voiceover how much she loves "getting a few moments alone with the world's most dazzling eyes," it's not corny in the least bit, because we easily believe it.

What makes FLIPPED special and particularly interesting is the style in which it's edited. Scenes transpire from Bryce's perspective, as we hear his apprehensive voiceovers in which he talks about how he's handling Juli's ogling over him. THEN, we "flip" to Juli's perspective - the image on the screen actually flips each time this happens, although that's not the ONLY reason why the film is titled FLIPPED, as we soon discover. While we're looking at things from Bryce's perspective, we only get a superficial look at the things Juli does, and then once the "flip" occurs, we get a clearer explanation for her motivations. As much as I love the approach and as much as it makes the film consistently engrossing, there are two problems. First, the film feels more episodic than it should. It could've easily had occasional title cards that read "Episode #1: The Sycamore Tree", "Episode #2: Juli meets Bryce's grandfather," etc. With love stories, I think linearity is the better approach: it's better to have a sequence of connected events careen into a heart-tugging climax than to have all these isolated incidents fused together. Secondly, because the approach is constantly that of Bryce's perspective giving us a superficial look at what JULI does, and then Juli's perspectives going deeper into HER OWN motivations, we don't get as much insight into Bryce's demons as we do into Juli's. It would've been good for the film to "flip" every now and then to give us a deeper look at the male protagonist. This is one of those rare cases of a 90-minute movie that I would've definitely liked to be longer. Bryce and Juli may be some of the best lovebirds their age we've seen on film, and I would've liked to spend even more time with them.

Still, the mixture of humor and heartbreak in FLIPPED makes it very easy for me to recommend it. There's an ironic moment involving a science fair, in which Bryce and Juli are competing, and of course, Bryce goes for the cliche of the fake erupting volcano, whereas Juli comes up with something much more raw and simpler, yet wins because it's also a lot more interesting. Bryce is too busy avoiding Juli in order to not be embarrassed in front of his classmates, all the while not realizing that he's slowly letting love slip right through his hands. He starts developing feelings for Juli, but now that Juli has more maturity in her, she realizes she's not really as excited about Bryce as a person, because of how he has treated her. This is where the word "flipped" truly attains its meaning within the film, which analyzes the deep emotional changes that can take place from childhood to adolescence. Juli the child was enthralled with her idealistic view of this boy who kept avoiding her, but now Juli the teenager is learning than Bryce "may be less" than what she thought. Bryce, on the other hand, is now starting to understand that he hasn't appreciated something AMAZING that has been right in front of him his whole life (in fact, the kids live right across from each other).

My description of the film has probably made the character of Bryce out to be a jerk, but if you watch FLIPPED, you'll realize that's not the case, and most of it is thanks to Callan McAuliffe's performance - by the way, the kid is Australian, but his American accent is incredibly dead-on (oh, and the script doesn't lie to us: his eyes truly are dazzling). Madeline Carroll frequently goes from effervescence to pain throughout the film, as she captures the emotional rollercoaster experienced by Juli, and she doesn't miss a beat. I don't think you could've picked a more appealing and capable pair to play these two characters.

As one supporting character says early on in the film, "you have to look at the whole landscape" of things. Looking at the whole landscape proves difficult when you're young and innocent, but it becomes easier once you hit a few bumps, as Bryce and Juli find out. As much as I hate having to compare a film to other works that its director has done in the past, I feel that I, um, have to look at the whole landscape here. :) A review of Rob Reiner's FLIPPED doesn't feel complete without mentioning 1986's STAND BY ME. In fact, STAND BY ME is a big reason why I'm only giving a 6/10 to FLIPPED. As much as I like FLIPPED, it pales in comparison to the earlier film, which is easily one of the best stories about adolescent characters ever committed to film. It's funny because, considering that it's been 24 years, you might think we would've gotten something BETTER now. Perhaps age has made Reiner become a little, um, softer, because "softer" is a good word to use in comparing FLIPPED and STAND BY ME. The latter film often moved into dark, disturbing matters, despite having an all-teenaged cast, whereas with FLIPPED, as moving as it often is, you can't ever escape the feeling of how nice and well-intentioned it is. FLIPPED is very much a "feel-good" movie, while STAND BY ME was emotionally searing, both in a "feel-good" AND a "feel-bad" way. All in all, though, we can be thankful for what FLIPPED has to offer, which is a more authentic than usual look at adolescent romance. FLIPPED doesn't have the full-on happy ending that those expecting a conventional movie pay-off will want, but it does end on a hopeful note, and it's a note that accurately foreshadows the even tougher years of maturing that our two protagonists have yet ahead of them. Considering the dross of films that are out there calling themselves "teen comedies," we have to be appreciative when a film manages to do something like that.

6/10