Growing Op

Quinn, (Steven Yaffe), a home educated teenager growing up in a family with counter culture parents who run a suburban grow-up wants to lead a normal life. He enrolls in a local high school in order to pursue the girl next door. His attempts to win the girl of his dreams run afoul the school president who sets the high school bullies on him. After enduring humiliation Quinn manages to turn the tables on his tormentors and beat the system at the same time. The funniest high school comedy since "Rock and Roll High School" Neatly reverses the usual stoner formula. Highly sympathetic and nuanced performance from Rosanna Arquette as the mother. "Growing Op" appeals to both the sixties generation and today's teen agers. Both groups see themselves in this movie. High energy, strong music score, MTV style editing and polished script and direction drive this picture along. Not to be missed.

I had the good fortune to see this film at the opening night ceremony for the Silver Wave Film Festival in Fredericton. It is, quite simply, the best independent feature film I have ever seen come out of New Brunswick. This feel-good movie about a teenager who has trouble fitting in, because of his radically anti-establishment marijuana-growing parents is funny and original. There is plenty in it to make you laugh and the female lead (Rachel Blanchard) is extremely attractive in a "girl-next-door" kind of way. When I first heard that the movie was about drugs, I was worried that it would be narrow, unimaginative and predictable; however this movie is anything but predictable. Thankfully, the acceptable acting quality and originality makes this movie much more than merely a film about drugs. It is about first-love, freedom, growing up, the nature of betrayal and high school politics. I recommend this film to independent film lovers all around the world and all Canadians.

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!

I am shocked to read so many positive reviews on here for this absolutely terribly written film, I can only surmise that some of the cast and crew felt the need to try to bolster what is a very poor piece of Canadian cinema.

The problem lies solely in the script which feels like a first draft. A decent premise that very quickly goes nowhere. Around the one hour mark I was left wondering what possible events could sustain the film for another 40 minutes. As it turns out, the answer lies in a complete plot twist that actually may have worked had the movie been about something to begin with.

The relationship between the two leads would make a nice subplot, but it's not enough to carry a film that has little else going for it.

Decent performances and a competent level of production value are the only things saving this film by being terrible overall, but that only further serves to showcase the problem with a film being based on such terrible source material. All the ingredients were there to make a good film, but it just never even scratches the surface of it's potential for comedy or story.

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.