Miles

Small town boy wants to run off to the big city of Chicago and cooks up a scheme to play on the girl's volleyball team in order to secure a sports scholarship to Loyola. There's about 150 subplots, none of which are all that resolved, but that's the big one.

It's not terrible; it's just pointless and bland. Every time you think it'll rise up and make some kind of statement... about life, about art, about sexuality, about anything at all... it just quietly ducks off and goes somewhere else. Molly Shannon (Mom) and Paul Reiser (School Superintendent) do what they can with what they're given, which really ain't much. You just have all these stories — the dead father's mistress, the Mom pretending to be a gay man and having an x-rated convo with a guy online (using AOL, since the film is set in 1999), the potentially lesbian volleyball coach, this, that, the other — and in the centre of it all is a manchild so terminally thin and boring that it wouldn't matter if he were gay or straight or nothing at all. His sexuality really doesn't mean anything in terms of the plot: it's a convenient character add-on no doubt to get this some visibility in LGBT film festivals. Toss in a couple of obligatory film montages — his team tryout, the team winning their games, Mom dancing around the kitchen — and the result is a treacley, tasteless movie that tries to have an inspiring message and comes across as a greeting card about personal courage.

Director Nathan Adloff, along with writing partner Justin D.M. Palmer (both of "Nate and Margarett" - 2012), present an enjoyable summer teen flick. Happy go lucky Miles (terrific relative newcomer Tim Boardman - "Wilde Wedding 2017) is coming to grips with his sexuality, while surviving a home where dad (Stephen Root - "Office Space" 1999) is estranged, and mom (Molly Shannon - TV's - "Divorce") is complacent. When dad leaves the family broke, Miles joins the HS girls volleyball team in hopes of obtaining a scholarship to college, and mom begins to live. Along with Root and Shannon, the film is filled with additional familiar character actors, including Miss Pyle ("Gone Girl), Paul Reiser (TV's "Divorce"), Ethan Phillips (TV's "Girls"), Yeardley Smith ("The Simpsons) and Anie Golden ("Orange Is the New Black"). Unforuntately, when a film is filled with so many established comedy character actors, it usually means trouble. Lucky, are all in good hands here with Adloff and Palmer, who have given each (through good writing and a sound storyline) an opportunity to present their dramatic acting chops. Every summer, a good youth film comes along to remind us that somehow we all make it through it, and MILES fits that bill perfectly.

This movie had potential, it was never gonna be a work of art, but it could have been so much better. It's such a shame we have one more case of a movie building up to something that just barely happens. Then we get a time jump that "resolves" everything with no context whatsoever. It's not about the happy ending it's about telling the entire story.

Miles is a 17 yr old looking desparately to get out of his small town. But his dad dies very early in the film, and there goes his college money. His odd ticket out, which doesnt seem to make much sense, is to get Men's volleyball scholarship to a school in Chicago. But, there's onl a girls volleyball time at his school, so he signs up for that. Then much of what follows is drama in a small town that takes its gir's volleyball very seriously. A side drama is that being gay in a small town in 2000 , Mile's only chance for contact w/other gays is online chats. What i loved about this is that altho his small town didn't provide opportuniies for any gay friends, or bf's, being gay is just another trait of him not a defining one. There is no gay angst. I really enjoyed the closeness and support from Mile's mother and several of the townfolk. The small town politics was spot on, very frustrating at times, but no disney villains here. Lastly, I loved Tim Boardman as Miles. very young actor did a great job. Very steady performance. And he just lights up the screen with youthful optimisim as he looks for ways out of his small town, and starting life as he leaves the nest. One caveat, there are alot of low user ratings i would disregard. It's like they saw a different movie, or possibly have some agenda that has no bearing on the quality of the movie.

Miles is a blandly pleasant movie, but there isn't that much drama or comedy or connection to reality. The actor playing Miles is likable but the plight facing his character isn't that compelling and the premise for the movie, though supposedly "inspired" by a real story, isn't especially convincing.

Miles wants to escape small town Illinois and head off to the bright lights of Chicago to attend college once he finishes high school. Those plans rest on a modest amount of money set aside for him by his parents, but his father seems to have blown through the money and this only comes to light when he dies, supposedly leaving Miles with no choice but to spend the balance of his life in his dreary hometown, one of several assumptions that stretches our credulity.

Although the family is obviously of modest means, it's only at this point that Miles considers looking into financial aid for college. Judging from the response from his high school counselor, this is breaking new ground for her as well. But she has a list of possible financial aid for schools located in Chicago and that list contains a total of two items, the National Merit Scholarship Program and one volleyball scholarship from Loyola that supposedly would cover nearly all of Miles's expenses … all of which beggars belief.

We then have to accept, absent a boys' volleyball team at his school and that no other possible scholarships exist, that a recruiter from Loyola would likely pick him after watching Miles play for a few minutes on a girls' team.

Surprisingly this doesn't pan out, although Miles, his mother and the girls' team coach all eventually think it's a marvelous idea and the Loyola recruiter takes the time to come to a game to watch a player with no Illinois high school volleyball record at a school the recruiter would surely know has no boys' team.

The idea behind the movie had some potential and, presumably, the story that "inspired" it was more grounded in reality and possibly involved some actual drama and comedy, but the end result fell pretty flat and wasted an opportunity to explore the more plausible problems faced by gay kids "trapped" in rural America.