Philophobia

Formulaic, low budget, average acting, below average script - bored me quite early on and never regained my interest.

It felt like a teen soap opera - so I guess some will like it. As a teenage coming of age drama it's all been done before and this had nothing new to add to the drama.

The plot revolves around a group of friends who live in a small town, some of them long to escape - it's set during a summer of final school exams - but it's all been done before.

There are some fairly interesting scenes - mostly involving the one actor who has since gone on to do other things, but overall I was underwhelmed.

A film about teenagers, 17 years old at the end of high school. The film takes place focusing on a teenager and the passion he has for a colleague of his. The film follows adolescent psychology. Unfortunately, the film has many "dead times", many boring moments, many weak dialogues, devoid of substance ... for all this, grade 6 seems to me to be high enough.

You've seen this film before. You have!

Well, maybe not this exact one, but you've seen all its components in other movies - just in a different order perhaps.

Let's have a look at those components:

Elegiac film about a last summer of innocence? Check!

A sensitive aspiring writer whose best friends seems to be unlikely choices? Check!

A sensitive aspiring writer who wants to leave his small minded, small town? Check!

And those best friends - is one a bland but pleasant enough character who is really just a means of allowing us to hear the sensitive writer's thoughts, and does the other one provide comic relief? Check?

And although the friends say that they too want to escape town, does it become clear that they don't because they are suited to small-town life and will never leave? Of course!

How about a seemingly unattainable girl who barely notices the sensitive writer? Yep, got one of those!

Does she have a two-dimensional insensitive brute of a boyfriend who is an obstacle standing in the way of true love but who mysteriously seems to have convinced the girl he should her boyfriend? You bet!

I know. What about a wild animal that acts as a metaphor for freedom and may or may not have some kind of metaphysical role as well? From start to finish!

Add to this a script that treats the female characters as nothing more than cyphers; completely lacking any kind of inner life, some 'they all look the same' racist stereotyping, and an ending, rounding off two very long hours, that helps tie up the loose ends but which is morally very suspect indeed, and you have As I Am (Philophobia, in some markets).

I was being very generous when I gave the film six points. Really, don't bother.

As with most movies that involve a mystery, "Philophobia" reveals the secret life of adolescence within a rustic setting. The forest is the central set for the performances, wherein romantic dreaming, testing friendships, exercising of liberties and independence are all manifested. Inconsistency in storytelling is justified by the final scenes.

All scenes are full of loneliness and searching. Building friendships and romantic experience is undercut through growing up in the single-mom families. There are no images of fatherhood, i.e. children do not have communications with male-parents. This gap in revealing the father-children relationships since the beginning of the movie warns about vulnerability of those teens. Their misbehaving can be explained by the absence of the paternal presence.

The main character, Kai, goes through various challenges during the movie. Kai's choices separate the movie into the chapters. First dilemma - girlfriend Grace, second - boyfriend on that girlfriend, Kenner. Kai's decisions are not consistent, his mind vacillates. The final scenes show that moral choices are hard, but they direct the pathways in people's lives.

Just watch it. There's some profundity in there, that we old fogies all recognise, and teenagers will benefit from seeing it on screen.

And some truths, in that the teenage world is still learning how to navigate the 'new normal', post the #MeToo revelations. It's not a world we want them to still be inhabiting, but it's a fact that many of them still are. Hopefully that will change soon. It's not the job of this director to make that happen.

I thought the portrayal of the teenage mind and relationships was well handled, in the time allowed.

Lovely location in the Cotswolds, England (UK).

I'm glad I watched it. Well done Guy Davies, in his directorial debut.