Growing Op

My wife and tenant love to torture me with main stream movies...this was such a refreshing break!

You could really care for the characters and the plot flowed along really well.

I think I only realized it was Canadian made when the court scene happened...why can't Canadian productions make better court rooms? lol

I would recommend this to anyone, especially stoners.

A great film you can really get in to.

I am going to look for more films by the same people, I thought it was really well written.

If anyone knows more films by the same people, please post!

Saw this tonight at the film's premiere at the Atlantic Film Festival. The crowd was great, and we were laughing our heads off all the way through.

As a recently-graduated homeschooler myself, it was amusing to see an outsider's (highly inaccurate in my case, but hilarious) take on the practice. Some of the questions raised in the film are questions I ask myself often.

Kudos to the excellent cast, especially Steven Yaffee as the main character, and Wallace Langham as his father, who both really get into their characters and make us feel their emotions.

There's a plot twist near the end that seems a bit ridiculous and unnecessary at first, but may make more sense once you think it over.

All in all, a great film, and it's always nice to see films from Atlantic Canada that are just good fun to watch.

Quinn (Steven Yaffee) is an awkward teen with no friends. It doesn't help that his parents (Wallace Langham, Rosanna Arquette) are hippies secretly growing illegal weed at home and they don't allow him to attend school. Hope (Katie Boland) is his punk drug-selling little sister. He's taken with beautiful new girl Crystal Connor (Rachel Blanchard) moving in across the street. Suddenly, he has a real need to go to class. His love for Crystal makes him the prime bullying target for class president hunk Philip and his popular group.

That was some twist. I am not a fan. It turns a fun little teen comedy into a heavy drama. I do like most of the movie. The sharp turn totally threw me. It's definitely a surprise although I assumed the ending to be her accidentally letting out the secret and the family has to go on the run. The point is to keep it light and prison time is not light. I still like the movie and the characters.

I have a weakness for comedies that involve marijuana. Woody Allen's Sleeper is my favourite comedy of all time. JPod made me hoot. Stacey Keach slowly turning into a lizard in Nice Dreams is one of the funniest comedic ideas ever. Peter Sellers and Herbert Lomb, with wax face melting while high on laughing gas is the scene in movies most likely to make me get the uncontrollable giggles (I know it was not marijuana, but its the same sort of idea).

Growing Op is about a left wing authoritarian father somewhat like Ward Clever who grows marijuana for a living in his kitchen in the middle of an upper class neighbourhood with a rather stodgy teenage son. The premise is ripe with comic potential. Unfortunately, the movie hardly exploits any of it.

It a formulaic story about a dorky guy, Quinn, who lusts after the girl, puts up with hazing, then gets her. The marijuana growing is really just a backdrop.

There are two mildly villainous characters, his rival, Philip, a conceited, dazzlingly handsome blond boy (still photos don't do him justice), played by Jon Cor and Quinn's younger sister, played by Katie Boland, who wears garish clothes and makeup, who bullies him.

Philip has the best line in the movie when he explains he will not use violence against Quinn in his rivalry because otherwise has father would not send him to law school.

These villains are fun, but barely on screen enough to let you relish them. As in any teen movie, there are a number of preposterously shallow, air head girls.

Father is not funny, just annoying. Rosanna Arquette, as Mom, gets a few good scenes, but she is basically wasted. In a comedy, unexpected things should happen. This move is far too realistic and boring.

There is a fair bit of obligatory soft porn between the two leads. Neither of them was particularly sexy, so for me it just felt embarrassing. Even the actors gave out the vibe they could hardly wait to get it over with. Rachael has a strange way of smiling sometimes that reminds me of Mr. Burns in The Simpsons. It is quite off-putting, as if she were an imbecile. I am not sure if it was intentional.

Im not usually a fan of weed films or romantic comedies, but I watched this with a lot of enjoyment the other night. The acting from most of the actors was very good, and the chemistry between the cast as well. Quinn and his father were both superb. Some parts were really laugh out loud funny. Enjoyed the plot twist towards the end, took me completely by surprise. Life in Canadian high-school seems to be depicted pretty accurately. Made me appreciate what I have and see the blessing of not being a little tiny gear in the impersonal system like 99% of other Canadians my age. Will look up the writer / director to try and see more of his work.