Love That Boy

This is a lovely film about an overachieving girl named Phoebe who is weeks away from graduating from university. She has done almost everything from "foraging for wild mushrooms" to getting a "kayak certification", but has never had a boyfriend.

This is not by any means your average cheesy romantic comedy. It is modest in visual style, yet perfectly appropriate. Attention has been paid to Phoebe's many retro outfits, to a great script, and to perfect direction to the actors whose manner perfectly matches the tone of the film.

This film will leave you enchanted, content, and smiling. Andrea Dorfman has already created a signature style between this and her last film "Parsley Days".

Phoebe is an overachieving college student, with a geeky strange personality. Her tastes are unusual, so she doesn't really fit into college life very well. Her goals in life are written down on pieces of paper, and she crosses them off as she achieves them; so really her ultimate goal in life is to achieve her goals in life. She has a roommate Robin who semi-tolerates her, but even Robin has her limits and eventually grows frustrated by her pompousness. One day Robin just decides to pack up and leave to go back to her home -- she'd basically rather be anywhere but couped up with Phoebe. Robin even feels that Phoebe is a bit obsessed with her; perhaps Phoebe is; Robin implies that Phoebe needs a boyfriend. Getting a boyfriend immediately becomes Phoebe's next entry in her goal-in-life list.

Unfortunately, Phoebe is a bit ill-equipped for this task. She meets guys randomly, things go well briefly, and then all of a sudden she decides to show them how much smarter she is than them and things don't progress any further. She has a friend in the 14-year old neighbor boy Frazier across the street, who she can be her natural self with. He doesn't mind her showing how much smarter she is than him, because he is 14 and she is 21, and so he already expects her to be smarter than him. But he's also pretty smart himself, somewhat wise for a 14 year old. Frazier has a younger sister Bug who provides a frantically geeky comedy relief -- she's more geeky than Phoebe. Phoebe asks Frazier to help her take her kayak classes (another one of her life goals), and a bond develops between them.

Meanwhile, Robin the ex-roommate decides to become a roommate again. Robin has had her own little misadventure across Canada during her trip home, so she decides to come back. When she gets back, she finds out about the little friendship/relationship that's developed between Frazier and Phoebe. So she decides to inject a little reality into Phoebe's life by letting her know that in the real-world 21 year-olds aren't supposed to date 14 year-olds. Phoebe says they aren't dating, but Robin says it still looks like they're dating. This sets up a moral dilemma in Phoebe that she wasn't even aware that she should be feeling up until that point.

How the movie ends, I won't tell you, check it out. I give it a 9/10.

+ The story itself gives an interesting view of a too ambitious girl who is not on this planet but lives in her artificial challenge-controlled life - created by herself in form of a list, containing all the 'important' things what in life a person should reach. The age-problem is also interesting, comes from real life (the boy is much too young for her...what should be done, it is reckoned as a shame, will she undertake...?)

• The above mentioned list was very exaggerated. The implementation of the main role character was also very exaggerated, anti-antipathetic. In total the antipathetic feeling and the fast-changing exaggerated scenes overwhelmed the story.

You wouldn't think that a movie in which an adult woman and a teenage boy flirt with romance could be described as sweet but sweet is exactly what this movie is.

Phoebe (Nadia Litz, whose baby face helps to undercut the creepiness of the tale), is about to graduate university (which would make her roughly 21). She's a total type A, obsessing over making valedictorian, piling on extra curriculars and emotionally suffocating her roommate and best friend (only friend) Robin. Eventually Robin cracks under the pressure of being Phoebe's best friend and plus one to everything. She tells Phoebe off, mentioning in a list of complaints that, among other things, Phoebe has never had a boyfriend. Phoebe is embarrassed but also decides to approach this as an unsocialized type-A would and adds getting a boyfriend to her list of things to do. After a date goes wrong she ends up hanging out with Frazer (Adrien Dixon) her 14 year old neighbour who she pays to mow her lawn. Frazer is actually impressed by Phoebe's knowledge and the two end up growing closer and closer.

The film definitely toes the line about coming across as icky, but Dorfman and her co-writer Jennifer Deyell handle the material well and keep it just innocent enough and just awkward enough so that it never crosses over into full on creepiness.

It's also a super low-budget film but this somehow adds to the cartoonishness and sweetness of the movie.

Set in suburban Halifax, a college student meets the neighbour across the street. LOVE THAT BOY is a heart-warming look at a coming-of-age story for two young people. Frazer is the typical earnest, adorable 14 year old boy that we all fall in love with. There's the other girl on the street who constantly picks on Frazer because she "likes" him. Phoebe is the over-achieving college student who falls for the lawnboy. Phoebe is a "late bloomer" in relationships and the Frazer is attracted to the Phoebe who is mature, fun and sincere. The story is about two people who "get each other" however the age difference comes between them. See this well-written and acted film. 8/10