Electrick Children

Rebecca Thomas' Electrick Children is a generally obscure 2012 film that received very little attention from critics or the general public. Whether or not attention was deserved, Elecktrick Children is a bizarre and sometimes charming visuals-driven story of teen curiosity and adventure in an unknown world. It's quite literally a personal story for director Rebecca Thomas (who was a mainstream Mormon raised in Las Vegas) and it shows as Electrick Children is more of a feast for the senses rather than a cohesive narrative-driven story.

Electrick Children features a cast of talented teenagers with Julia Garner playing the lead. She does an excellent job portraying a naive and curious Mormon experiencing elements of the outside world for the first time. She is perfectly awkward when she needs to be as her innocence and purity makes her character easy to like. The cast includes many other rebellious teenagers but her character is really the only one that gets built upon and developed. This isn't too much of a flaw as the story is really supposed to only be focused on her and her mission, but some development to these supporting characters wouldn't have hurt. Overall, Julia Garner was fantastic and I look forward to seeing her in future titles.

The story, albeit quite simple, is full of wonder but sometimes uneven. The film is heavily stylistic as we witness things through the Mormon teenager's eyes as she gazes in wonderment at things she has never seen before. There is a heavy emphasis on lighting and music, helping to immerse us in the world that this girl is experiencing for the first time. We feel just as lost as her as we meet many different types of people and engage in nefarious juvenile actions. While the film is mostly entertaining, there are noticeable slumps in the pacing. Sometimes there are quite long stretches of slow and tedious drama, and while these sequences are infrequent, it still hurts the films pacing quite a bit. Another issue with Electrick Children is the unsatisfying ending. We get a pretty great third act filled with interesting interactions but all this builds up to an abrupt and inappropriate ending. Many important questions are not answered or even acknowledged, making the film feel unfinished.

Despite the few issues, Electrick Children is a charming and strangely intriguing story of teen curiosity that resonates quite personally with the director, who clearly showed passion in their work here. The story is interesting and mostly well told when it isn't treading too lightly. The great acting from the lead actress and the colorful and dreamy narrative makes Electrick Children an experience that is easy to enjoy despite uneven pacing and poor ending. The themes of teenage angst and rebellion makes the experience a deeply personal one as we can all understand what our lead character is going through. Except for the "pregnancy through music" part.

Rebecca Thomas' first feature as writer-director is an interesting character study of a fifteen year old Mormon girl, Rachel, played with a wonderful and understated performance by Julia Garner. It begins with daddy dearest questioning the teen about her devotion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints; also known as Mormons. The wide eyed innocent proclaims an unquestioned faith in the teachings to her father. He explains that the interview must be recorded on a cassette player. She later finds the device and pops in a tape with the song "Hanging on the Telephone" on it. While listening to it, she has an epiphany. She believes that the singer is a messenger of God, and that he has chosen her to carry a modern day Baby Jesus. She becomes pregnant; and, of course, mom and dad do not believe her story of an immaculate conception, and a quick marriage to a boy in the Amish looking community is arranged. Rachel has other ideas, and steals the family pick up truck and drives to Las Vegas in search of the singer who has impregnated her via audio tape. She meets a rock band who takes her in and she learns about life outside of her sheltered commune. A few plot twists are included and the ending is rather ambiguous, but I recommend Electrick Children for a very believable Julia Garner; a very promising young actress.

Electrick Children is the best kind of indie film, about characters unlike any you've probably seen before, experiencing genuine human relationships under intriguingly unusual circumstances. The scenes and characters stay with you in an almost haunting way long after you've watched it. More than just about any other film I've seen, Electrick Children "got" the true essence of a mother-daughter relationship, and there is much more to the story than that. You get the sense that the director genuinely cares about these characters and offers the viewer an honest, almost voyeuristic view of their lives. This film is no slapstick comedy, but it does have humor and warmth.

'Electrick Children' follows the story of a pregnant, 15 year old Rachel living in a present day Mormon society. She claims that the father of her unborn child is the voice of a singer on a rock cassette she listened to, insisting that 'God got her pregnant through the tape'. Her family insists otherwise, and Rachel goes to Las Vegas to search for the father

Electrick Children is fresh, vivid, indie feel is what makes this film I love the colors and textures in the movie to feel like it was filmed on actual film stock. The warm lights of Las Vegas, indie rock, and the desert all make way for a beautiful place for this story to unfold.

Writer/Director Rebecca Thomas understood what she meant to say, but as with so many independent filmmakers, she felt no obligation to communicate that message comprehensibly. Depicting events that could not possibly happen does not create symbolism. Failing to come up with an ending does not make the plot "open to multiple interpretations."

I watch A LOT of movies. As I watched this movie, I thought that in some sense it reminded me of the movie 'Perks of Being a Wallflower'. I didn't even realize that Julia Garner is in 'Perks of Being a Wallflower'! Every scene in this movie is perfect. The music is perfect. The way they incorporate narration or conversations in each scene is unique but works very well and again, creates a certain mood. Although this is no average plot, by the end of the movie, the characters to the viewer are well-known. It's like a good book; when the book is over you almost miss the characters - and I definitely felt that in this movie. The movie felt very Nostalgic. What a beautiful film!