Sophie Jones

Sophie Jones is a simple and delicate film, with so much going on under the surface. The characters felt complex, authentic, and appropriately high school aged -- not only physically, but also with just the right amount of angst. It's one of those films that you can tell was birthed through real trauma and pain, but from someone who has done a lot of healing on the other side of that trauma. So, as an audience member, you feel taken care of. You trust the filmmaker to lead you into truth, and into a better place.

Director Jessie Barr's smooth peer into teenage parental death feels refreshingly more Bergman than, well, a lot American directors. Her soft touch allows the viewer to feel and absorb through brevity of words versus peripatetic, loquacious ramblings. The lead and supporting actors lend a natural and intrusive peek into their lives that felt documented not contrived.

Contemplative and enjoyable.

I am hoping I can expect more of my three young ones than this disgraceful and dysfunctional display....... Really creepy to think this is a relationship representation......

I too found the lead Sophie Jones totally distasteful in the first few minutes of the film and this did not improve in fact worsened if anything......

I was blown away by this film. The way it's made feels tender and delicate and personal. Everything here feels familiar and painful and dreamlike to anyone that's experienced the loss of the parent -- the internal desperation in loss, especially if you're a young person when you experience it, in trying to hold onto things and pushing them away by throwing your emotions into something else, searching for your memory in smells, talking outloud to them as if they're still there. Jessie's direction of the actors is fantastic and raw and real. And the intimacy of the characters' journeys feels so real and present. This is such a beautiful piece and I'll be thinking of it for some time.

Grief can be very confusing and you just don't know how you will react until it happens. Losing someone as important as a mother during adolescent years would only make it more so. I think this is exactly how a teenage girl might react with the pressures of sex always there in those years added to the intensity of how the grief process can be. I especially like how Sophie's friends are such good support for her, staying with her while she works this out internally. This is probably not a film for a lot of people who may not understand what's going on. I will be interested to see further work this filmmaker does in future.