Lola

Living in a city as beautiful as Vancouver has its dark side, in more ways than anyone can imagine. Attracting lost souls at an early age is one of the lures of British Columbia's only glittering and inviting city cozily lodged on the shores of the warm Pacific Ocean and nestled in view of the surrounding Rocky Mountains.

Teenager dreams of squirting out of small towns and abusive family relationships abound and mostly end up in a wasted life naively domineered by pimps, drugs and finally untimely death is commonplace.

When Lola, a somewhat unfocused and distracted girl being psychologically abused by her boyfriend, decides to change her life, accidentally finds herself in a journey to find motherly love in an unknown woman.......

Lola is a perfect example of a movie that should have been at least 15 minutes shorter. There simply isn't enough story here to warrant Lola a tag of being a good film.

Don't get me wrong, Lola isn't terrible. The acting is good. The Sandra and Lola characters are polished fairly well. But seeing the main character walking in downtown Vancouver doing almost nothing will keep a moviegoers attention for so long.

I gave Lola 6 out of 10.

Flighty Lola (Sabrina Grdevich) gets her car towed and her boyfriend Mike (Colm Feore) is tired of her irresponsibility. She saves Sandra (Joanna Going) from oncoming traffic. She leaves Mike and starts to go with her new friend Sandra. The girls are beaten by Sandra's pimp behind a strip club and Lola runs away. She sets off taking over the other's identity.

The first half is intriguing. There are some interesting characters. I hoped to see the girls' relationship develop and how it conflicts with Mike. It all changes and Lola goes on this meandering journey. She's an aimless character on a pointless road trip. The intriguing character relationships all disappear. This Canadian indie starts off with some promise but the second half delivers nothing. At best, it tries to be poignant with Lola's journey but mostly it fails.

The One line Summary says it all. Don't expect too much action, this is a rather slow movie where you have to do your work and think to fully enjoy it. The main actress is incredible; she plays two different roles and you truly believe she is two different people.

Great little movie. Shot in the mountains in Alberta, a simple story about a girl running away from her older partner too journey home. Colm Feore and Sabrina Grdevich both do fantastic jobs. It's nice to see that movies like this are made in Canada where it seems acting/directing/writing talent is pretty sparse these days.