Philophobia

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.

It would be more fulfilling to spend 2 hours screaming in a dark room than watching this. The dialogue is constantly bland and adds nothing. There is a good movie in here somewhere but it's about 20 minutes long. The extra 100 minutes is literally meaningless.

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.

Philophobia is beautiful from start to finish. Visually and narratively, it excels in fully immersing you into this small town coming-of-age story. Yes, the run time is long and it is worth every minute!

Guy Davies' Philophobia blew me away when I saw it at PÖFF. Beautiful cinematography, fantastic acting and a story that made me laugh, gasp, swear at the screen and I'm not ashamed to say shed a little tear. I can't recommend this movie enough. Everyone should see it! Indie films are the one.