Picture Day

Tatiana Maslany of 'Orphan Black' stars as Claire Paxton, a rebellious teen forced to repeat her senior year of high school. She is look down upon as a school outsider with a questionable reputation. She becomes a friend, mentor, and an object of desire to Henry who is also a quiet outsider she used to babysit as a child. On the other hand, she is sexually involved with Jim, the 30-something front man for the funk band, the ElastoCitizens.

This is a coming of age story not just for Henry but also for Claire. They're both amazing in this great little indie movie, but Tatiana is the one that breaks out as a true movie star. She is both magnetic and vulnerable in this role.

Tatiana wants to hang out with a much older musician, no wait, she is suddenly interested in the younger guy she used to babysit, making him her pet project. What's interesting is seeing her character's layers and defences peel away, little by little. No question we're watching a Canadian film here. And yes, that's a good thing.

So much of this movie's charm comes from its cast, who are all super likable, especially the lead. But it's also got really great storytelling, with a lot of understated moments and implications you have to piece together yourself. Breezy and moody and recommended to anyone who likes these chill sorts of movies.

"Picture Day" stars Tatiana Maslany as Claire, a girl who's described as being caught in between adolescence and adulthood. But that's only accurate if adulthood is actually an immature state of being where teenagers are snarky and rude because they think they're cool and smarter than everybody else. She's smack dab in the middle of adolescence no matter how mature she might think she is.

During Claire's last year of high school – again, she meets two guys. Jim is legally an adult, thereby making him older and wiser. He also represents the sex, drugs and rock & roll stage of "adulthood". Henry is younger than Claire, but also mature, studious and observant. He's also more sheltered and needs someone to show him the harsh realities of coming of age.

The coming of age parallels within in this film are apparent and abundant. Claire's stuck between adolescence and adulthood and is repeating her last year of high school – as if she's unable to know when she needs to grow up. She's also torn between two guys, representing the high school and adult worlds she's torn between. And then within the guys themselves, the older one is more immature and less adapted to the adult-world and has no need for Claire himself. While the younger one can provide Claire with the stability she needs and has the maturity to approach adolescence like an adult.

The problem is all those parallels are represented within the premise, once you actually start watching the movie, there's nothing left to discover. "Think these ideas are smart? Good, because that's all we've got."

Worse is that the characters themselves don't provide any reasons to keep watching. Claire is rude, insolent and immature, and doesn't deserve our sympathy or even our attention. Jim is a walking, talking stereotype that is even more annoying than that sounds. Henry is a decent character, and since that should solve her boy-related dilemma, the only dilemma that's left is why we're still watching.

(2012) Picture Day DRAMA

Written and directed by Kate Miles Melville directing a coming-of-age story, centering onto yet another misunderstood teenage girl in this case it's Claire (Tatiana Maslany) who does nothing except sleep around, drink booze with people who don't really care about her, particularly the struggling rock musician. But ironically, the only person who does care about her is the young teenage guy she used to babysit with. I mean, like whoopee... Now, while I appreciate the 'raw' looking environment background, it's unable to make it's characters engaging, since each one of them are just as self-absorbed and one-note as the next, as we continue to see them doing things we ourselves can't see ourselves doing. Obviously, inspired by one of Mike Leigh's improvised movies perhaps "Naked" as well as "semi-documentaries such as "Kids" and "Bully". This movie is boring and doesn't add up to nothing.