Philophobia

As with most movies that involve a mystery, "Philophobia" reveals the secret life of adolescence within a rustic setting. The forest is the central set for the performances, wherein romantic dreaming, testing friendships, exercising of liberties and independence are all manifested. Inconsistency in storytelling is justified by the final scenes.

All scenes are full of loneliness and searching. Building friendships and romantic experience is undercut through growing up in the single-mom families. There are no images of fatherhood, i.e. children do not have communications with male-parents. This gap in revealing the father-children relationships since the beginning of the movie warns about vulnerability of those teens. Their misbehaving can be explained by the absence of the paternal presence.

The main character, Kai, goes through various challenges during the movie. Kai's choices separate the movie into the chapters. First dilemma - girlfriend Grace, second - boyfriend on that girlfriend, Kenner. Kai's decisions are not consistent, his mind vacillates. The final scenes show that moral choices are hard, but they direct the pathways in people's lives.

Guy Davies' Philophobia blew me away when I saw it at PÖFF. Beautiful cinematography, fantastic acting and a story that made me laugh, gasp, swear at the screen and I'm not ashamed to say shed a little tear. I can't recommend this movie enough. Everyone should see it! Indie films are the one.

Just watch it. There's some profundity in there, that we old fogies all recognise, and teenagers will benefit from seeing it on screen.

And some truths, in that the teenage world is still learning how to navigate the 'new normal', post the #MeToo revelations. It's not a world we want them to still be inhabiting, but it's a fact that many of them still are. Hopefully that will change soon. It's not the job of this director to make that happen.

I thought the portrayal of the teenage mind and relationships was well handled, in the time allowed.

Lovely location in the Cotswolds, England (UK).

I'm glad I watched it. Well done Guy Davies, in his directorial debut.

Philophobia is beautiful from start to finish. Visually and narratively, it excels in fully immersing you into this small town coming-of-age story. Yes, the run time is long and it is worth every minute!

Formulaic, low budget, average acting, below average script - bored me quite early on and never regained my interest.

It felt like a teen soap opera - so I guess some will like it. As a teenage coming of age drama it's all been done before and this had nothing new to add to the drama.

The plot revolves around a group of friends who live in a small town, some of them long to escape - it's set during a summer of final school exams - but it's all been done before.

There are some fairly interesting scenes - mostly involving the one actor who has since gone on to do other things, but overall I was underwhelmed.