It Felt Like Love

From the controlled, nuanced storytelling to the inventive camera work, Eliza Hittman's 'It Felt Like Love' is a quiet stunner, and a thoroughly confident first feature. It doesn't hurt that Hittman found an incredibly gifted and fearless performer in the young lead, Gina Piersanti.

The story unravels with a deep maturity and rawness, as we follow Lila (Piersanti) through the murky waters of sexuality and adolescence during a hot Brooklyn summer. 'Love' creates a fully realized portrait of a lost teenage girl discovering how wounding unrequited love can be. Seek this film out immediately!

"It Felt Like Love" can only be described as the film embodiment of female teenage sexuality. In her debut as both a director and screenwriter Eliza Hit-man has been able to accurately capture the awkward moments in time in which girls become women, and how these events shape us. The film's often unsentimental setting reflects it's overall tone of disenchantment. Lila (Gina Piersanti) naturalistic acting reminds us of our own struggles in painful stage of growth. The film redefines the concept of coming of age in literature and film by dissecting the romantic concepts often found in Bildungsroman type stories. "It Felt Like Love" shows the gritty and devastating consequences of discovering one's sexuality, and in a way that many veteran director, writers, and actors have not been able to before.

I am here becuase of her new installment and had to back-track and I fell in love! I really love how much fun she makes the characters and the stories and teh fun and all the stuff that happens and the dialogue is so much fun and I love how she can do so much with very little latitude in horology.

This film started with a good plot premise and some decent atmosphere but soon deteriorated into a meandering mess of a film . Gina P. shows promise here but her skills in this movie aren't developed. While pretty and rather pathetic in her thoughts and actions, her flatline performance eventually wears thin. A lousy rap soundtrack and some very sloppy camera work drag this down to almost unwatchable status. At first it seemed like the entire movie was going to be about watching her best friend make out with a revolving door of boyfriends. Way too much of that and completely unnecessary to further the plot. She's a tramp-we get it! Continually swapping spit is kind of an overkill the average viewer could do without. There's scenes in here that just begin to develop but then just fizzle out and go nowhere and then we are at the next scene. Jumps around with very little coherence. The ending is absolutely dumb and pointless and resolves nothing at all. A big swing and a miss, but I will look for Gina P. in more roles. The rest of the cast in all frankness stunk up the screen. Not sure if the director has any future in this business but if pressed to hazard a guess she should brush up on her waitressing skills. Nothing of merit offered in this movie.

There's a lot of talent here, Gina Piersanti may be a future star. Great editing, great camera work, solid directing, decent acting all around. Reminds me again of Lukas Moodyson and other European directors, there's some of that dogme style that's fairly unusual in American films. For a first feature this is promising.

But I'm not rating it higher because it's so monotonous and flat. Other films have told similar stories with humour and fun. I'm not sure if it was fully intentional or not, probably it was. one of those films that's better after you've seen it, if you can make it through - one of the longer "good" 1hr20 movies i've seen? Also slightly awkward to watch as a guy. I'm presuming it's somewhat autobiographical? Will be interested to see what the director does next.