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At seventeen you have a mother who's distracted, a boyfriend to whom you're clearly not attracted, it's the summer time is free, and so it's with some joy and glee, that you let an older man, have you extracted; as he takes you out and you start to get close, he treats you well, and doesn't hide in the shadows, although alarm bells should be ringing, a waitress knows what he is bringing, there's lots of cons and only one important pros; but you let him take advantage and engage, you're streetwise, have a quite mature gauge (or so you believe), he wants to introduce a friend, has something you can help distend, you could profit, and make him a living wage.

Great performance from Lily McInerny.

This movie is hard to watch (no spoilers but there are some very uncomfortable scenes that might trigger some folks so be warned). It's a good tension driven plot but ultimately fails to move forward and ends up being not quite as impactful as it could have been.

Many of the scenes in this film are "fly on the wall" shots with no camera movement and it's like you're in the room. I applaud the director for that, it's a great way to convey tension and force the viewer to "be there". Scenes with the mom and boyfriend both do this. This technique also drives this placid kind of ethereal feel throughout.

Overall I liked this film, it just fails in the plot development part especially the last bits. It will annoy a lot of viewers and it did annoy me, but it's still worth a watch. The acting is pretty good for an indie too.

Yes difficult to watch but very convincing. My daughter who is a psychologist works for a charity that counsel teenage Mothers and I know from talking to her how difficult and sometimes impossible it is to make these people see that the relationship they are in is really toxic. It doesn't always come from a particular type of girl some have a reasonable back story in as much as it isn't full of trauma and neglect but still they are attracted to a wrong'un and they won't be talked out of it. I don't know if some were not happy with an unsatisfying ending but that's how it goes in real life, people don't just suddenly wake up and see the mistake they made. Abusers are not always pimptastic and obviously abusive, some are very practiced and subtle and sadly that keeps their victim where they want them.

In telling a cautionary tale, a film must be on point if its message is to be effectively conveyed. Regrettably, such is not the case in this story of a silver-tongued, 34-year-old sexual predator (Jonathan Tucker) in his efforts to win the affections of a disconnected adolescent from a fragmented household (Lily McInerny) and manipulate her into a life of degrading, subservient behavior. It's a troubling tale, to be sure, one that has an important point to make. However, the execution leaves much to be desired. The film's glacial pacing (especially in the first half) becomes tedious quickly, particularly with the inclusion of considerable needless incidental footage depicting mundane everyday activities, events that are undoubtedly intended to reflect the teen's monotonous worldview but that grow eminently tiresome in short order. This is compounded by uneven character development, most notably that of the vulnerable protagonist, whose persona wavers wildly from incisively streetwise to exceedingly naïve and plainly outspoken to severely inhibited, undermining the believability of who she's really supposed to be and her reactions to the circumstances she faces. That's perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the conclusion, which, in my view, also stretches credibility somewhat (though I know there are those who would definitely beg to differ with me on that point). To its credit, the performances are all quite good, having earned two of the picture's four Independent Spirit Award nominations for the portrayals turned in by Tucker and McInerny. Still, this overlong offering suffers from both the aforementioned issues, as well as some questionable camera work and a need for tighter editing. Writer-director Jamie Dack's debut feature may have its origins in good intentions, but its followthrough frequently - and often widely - misses the mark.

Palm trees and Power Lines is the story of a bored girl who is emerging on adolescence. She meets a much older man who seems to understand her like she wishes others did.

So per my IMDb page I have seen 439 horror movies in my life... plus obviously many others. This film is without a doubt one of the most cringy and disturbing I have ever seen. This is not for the feint of heart. It also may not go in the direction you immediately assume.

The screen play is spot on , crafting a realistic story and character motivations. The acting and casting here is also very strong with Lily McInerny playing a girl 5 years younger than she is in real life to protection. You feel her frustrations with her circumstances and lack of belonging. Johnathon Tucker also plays his character very well in a role that demands a certain level of performance.

The only negatives I can even conjure up here is the entire film is shot on hand help and sometimes it becomes jarring to watch. Mundane conversations can be unappealing to look at and it isn't shot the best.

This movie absolutely nails what it was going for and should be seen by the right group of people but it isn't for everyone just the same. If you can take being shocked, offended and challenged by a take on a coming of age story - this is a great film.

Lea (Lily McInerny) is a teenager disconnected from her single mom Sandra (Gretchen Mol). She hangs out with her friend Amber and the boys. One night, the group dines and dashes. Tom (Jonathan Tucker) rescues her from the angry cook. She takes a ride from the stranger and it leads to a romance with the older man.

There are so many red flags being raised in this movie. It helps that Lily McInerny is so good at playing young. I almost believed that she's a teen during the first act. I hoped that he's only married, but the story becomes obvious soon enough. The last act is fittingly uncomfortable. It is a tough watch and goes on forever. It needs to be cut down if nothing else for my sanity. Lea is going to kill me with her choices.

Both characters lack depth. The story lacks depth. It's almost two dimensional. The female lead has zero personality.... The movie doesn't make you care about the characters. It doesn't evoke emotion. I get what the director was trying to get at. 'This can happen to anyone, and it can be covert, and feelings of love can be involved.' But at the end of the day the story is so blah that it doesn't even feel like a cautionary tale. The movie leaves you with nothing.

If you want to understand the gut wrenching reality of sexual coercion, sex slavery, systematic rape etc. Then watch Human Trafficking - a movie made before it's time. And never got enough credit for its gut wrenching brilliant, accurate portrayal of what had already become a little known pandemic at the time the movie was made, in the early 2000s.

Palm Trees and Power Lines is a slow descent into hell.

Good art is all about making people feel something. The emotions this film brings up are visceral. Evil is often a straw man set up by people with a philosophy to push, but "often" isn't the same as "always" and this film is a case in point if when there is no possible way to justify someone's behavior.

The film highlights how loneliness, social isolation, and the demands of modern life can cause havoc in young people's lives. This is a work of fiction that could have been inspired by a news story in any city or town in the U. S. It is a modern story in the classic Brothers Grimm style, without being sanitized by Disney animators. With standout acting and photography that is both beautiful and shows the banality of modern living, it is a cautionary tale that hits hard and makes you want to scream.

Saw this back at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival

Palm Trees and Power Lines is directed by Jamie Dack and it's a story about a disconnected teenage girl enters a relationship with a man twice her age. She sees him as the solution to all her problems, but his intentions are not what they seem. Starring actors Lily McInerny and Jonathan Tucker. Based on the short film also with the same name and by Dack, it felt really more of a longer filler version of the short film. Dack is trying her best to capture a disturbing realistic portrayal about a relationship between a young girl and an older man that becomes much more then we thought about. But due to a storyline that feels repetitive and lazy, it didn't take the serious subject matter to it's advantage and become a snooze fest.

Mclnerny and Tucker both give good performances and there are some good camerawork displayed. I do appreciate Dack choosing actors who fit the characters role properly. But the story needs work. The characters are lazy and unbearable at times. Some of the dialogue feels really fake and forced. As if an adult doesn't really understand how young people talk in this modern day of age. Certain choices from the characters was really idiotic and annoying which made me lose my interesting and focus on the character. The lightening at certain moments were really too dark to see what is happening because of budget issues which I can forgive for those reasons. But there is a lot of potential that is missed and I really do feel like this movie would have been an disturbing hidden gem just like "Never Rarely Sometimes Always" which this movie reminded me of that hidden gem. But it didn't work as well.

Dack is good for what is trying to do but I honestly was disappointed.

Rating: C-

Saw this for the Sundance festival, and it was a huge disappointment coming from the short film version of the same name. While the short film had the better main actress (she seemed more innocent, more believable, had a better singing voice, a more pleasant appearance, etc.,), this full length version had Jonathan Tucker. Having been a fan of his films since he started as a child actor, I knew he would be impressive as the role of the 'creepy dude' in this...and he was. Yet the slow pacing of the film and the drawn out unnecessary scenes centered around the lazy girl with equally lazy friends managed to swallow Tucker up completely. It felt like a waste of talent. I didn't think the director would take this version the direction that she did considering how the short film ended, and that was another disappointment. It was quite unrealistic and too grotesque to take seriously. As a woman it is becoming increasingly hard to watch movies made by women if this is the result. I've seen so many lately with the same qualities...slow pace, unrealistic drama, boring typical dialogue and almost all character development is non existent. They don't know how to make you care. This movie is another great example of that.

This is a very stunning debut film. The authenticity - the atmosphere, the acting - is stellar. The small-town teenage malaise is palpable. Lily McInerny is amazing, her portrayal of a doe-eyed adolescent longing for love but completely naive to life is excellent. Jonathan Tucker is completely believable as a charismatic "bad boy with heart."

My only gripe is that the story turns a bit fast and kind of strains credulity. Grooming takes time. And the situation would've been much more believable with drugs, which so often help people dissociate and bury trauma. But overall, an excellent take on a tough story.

First heard of this film while watching the Film Independent awards. This certainly isn't an uplifting film, but I did go in blind, only knowing the small bit on the IFC awards show for "breakthrough actor" nomination.

Going in blind it first appears to be a coming of age film that takes a bit of a sideways step, as an older (mid to late 30's) guy enters the life of a disconnected young girl, and seems a bit off but he charms his way into her life, while her home life is almost non-existent due to a single mother upbringing and her own mother's penchant for making life mistakes, and in this case repeating them. Tjese mistakes cause more distance between her and the daughter's dynamic. It also sent her firstly into hanging with friends til all hours, and ultimately charmed into what seems like an unhealthy, compulsive relationship with this new, older man.

Again, the narrative seems to take it further down the rabbit hole with the feel of a road movie starting to enter the overall feel of the storyarc---like a "forbidden relationship" that may take them on a journey. Until it doesn't.

It takes the turn that structured families fear may happen, and unstructured---feels almost inevitable.

Lily McInerney as Lea captures pure unadulterated innocence and vulnerability that this new "man" takes advantage of. Her damaged upbringing becomes her downfall, but instead of drugs and homelessness---we get something a bit more harrowing when you couple Lea's vulnerable state with her naivity.

Script is lean and mean, score is perfect in the right spots, adding tension when there is, and Gretchen Mol's role as the detached mother takes a back seat to quite a riveting performance by McInerney who is not only convincingly smart and real, it should also hit home to any parent that has a young daughter and the trepidation that some parents may feel when their daughter leaves the house making the same poor decisions that the mother has instilled. It's a dangerous cycle and the outcome of the final act shows just that. A pure gutpunch.

Pure and real independent film making at it finest.

8.5/10.

I can't quite put my finger on the reason why this film left me so cold.

It wasn't the acting, that was very good from the whole cast especially the central character.

The script meandered a little. The cinematography was pretty good, so it must have been the detached, long takes and lack of snappy editing that did it.

Some pretty awful things happen in the movie and the camera just focuses on the protagonist in a long unbroken shot. The aftermath for both scenes is notably played down. It is left for the audience to react.

The ending is also unsatisfactory. In the end we just want to slap the main character.

'Palm Trees and Power Lines' is about Lea (Lily McInerny) and her best friend Amber (Quinn Frankel) enjoying the summer as teenagers. After a random encounter, Lea meets Tom (Johnathan Tucker), a man twice her age, who offers to drive her home. Through a series of chance meetings, Lea develops feelings for Tom and they end up in a relationship, but she realizes too late that Tom's ulterior motives are underhanded and exploitive.

Acting and script are decent, characters are believeable, and the flow is solid. The main takeaway from this film is that Lea's mother, Sandra (Gretchen Mol) has her own busy interpersonal life and foesn't appear to take a serious interest in Lea. Her friends aren't mature enough for her, her boyfriend is a jerk, and Tom seems to be the answer to it all. The way the film presents the two of them feels organic and realistic.

Worth a watch!

Rough subjects, and sore super actual realism it has, the theme of human trafficking and/or grooming, that happens every day all over the world.

There are really no surprising moments in this flick about a lonely girl brought up in a single parent home, with a mum that is wingeling in and out of partnerships herself, not the ideal idol for a ''notknowhow'' 17 year old girl that doesnt feel love anywhere, even not from her closests friends...

this is a film that may disturb the metoo squad, and it is so too, but ive seen worse in really decent movies on the silverscreen in the past, that sets the path even tougher and more gross and swift than between the'' palm trees and powerlines'' of southern california...

what draws this film down is the extremely slow plotspeed, an unbearable long playtime and a weak caracter build up in general of the people that surrounds the main caracter. Allthough the acts of the two mains heaves this silverscreen moment above the water surface so that you maybe able to breath.

But a wow it is not and a meehh it aint either, so the grumpy old man calls out a 5 stars outta 10 for its socialrealistic value, and should and could be recommended as part of a curricullum for some young members and ditto parents of todays society as a reminder that dull and slow maybe a safe factor when screaming out for love for the first time...

Very solid first feature film from director Jamie Dack.

Really nice little indie coming of age film.

Peaceful and realistic slice of life kinda story.

I really liked it.

It was really nicely crafted.

I could understand motivations of every character.

There were some really nice family and frienship drama that i did relate in some levels.

But i can also see that this film will be very divisive.

There has been lot of conversations about age gap relationships in films lately.

But in this film that relationship is clearly supposed to be super uncomfortable and inappropriate.

And i mean super uncomfortable at so many momens.

Red flags were seen everywhere.

But i can really see that these kinda relationships are happening in real life.

Really well made film.

Nice looking.

Really naturalistic.

Mostly no soundtrack at all.

Nice performances.

I can see that Lily McInerney has bright future ahead.

She was really good in this.

Nice supporting performances too.

If this gets some really good studio to distribute it, i can really see it finding own audience.

I really hope so.

Or then it wil remain as little Sundance hidden gem.

I enjoyed my time watching this.