Encalhados

Wasn't expecting to like this film as much as I did.

First, Sam Rockwell has got to be one of the best actors to work with. He is naturally so cool and his confidence on screen must be contagious. I have never seen him put up anything but an A-Game level performance.

Second, no one plays the girl we all want to fall in love with (who is sincere, cool, fun, and romantic) than Kiera Knightley. Kiera and Sam? Would never see it working on paper. Totally worked on the screen.

Third, Chloe Grace Moretz is one talented and poised young actress whose resume is amazing at such a young age. I anticipate Chloe will take home a lot of hardware in her career.

Finally, Lynn Shelton paces this film perfectly. Her best effort to date.

I love this movie. I just saw it for the 3rd time (May 2020)... Trust me, and see this movie. Let the story develop and unfold ("wait for it"), and I bet you say the same thing by the end.

Nicely done to all involved! 👏👏👏

There is a winning quality to this romantic comedy about a girl in her 20s (Knightley) in a bit of a mid 20s crisis after being proposed to by her boyfriend. She befriends a teenage girl (Moretz) and her divorced father (Rockwell). It starts off a bit slow but then you realize gradually the characters are all quite likable even when they are doing something wrong. This understated treatment of the more serious moments makes it more effective especially the visit to the mother (Mol). Avoids melodrama which would have spoilt the tone of the movie.

Keira Knightley makes her 20s finding herself girl surprisingly sympathetic and identifiable. Throughout her mistakes you still root for her. Chloe Grace Moretz is a standout as always. She gives a sensitive performance and doesn't overact. Amidst all the recent movies a likable teenager character on film is kind of rare. Sam Rockwell plays the father quite charmingly.

Overall one the better indie rom coms of late and worth a watch.

Laggies would have been too big a mirror put up to my twenty-something crises-ed life were it not for the comedic value of the whole she-bang.

That's mildly dramatic but really Laggies is a very original take on the quarter-life crises beseeching the Millennial generation.

Megan (Keira Knightley) is an underachieving twenty-something resigned to an underwhelming existence of still dating her high school boyfriend and working for her father. Her friends are all doing the things you're supposed to be doing when you are in your mid-to-late twenties: getting married, having babies, buying a house, etcetera etctera. With a quarter-life crisis imminently on the horizon, Megan retreats to the home of new found friend Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz), a sixteen year old high school student.

The term Laggies comes from Megan's profoundly underwhelming inferior performance in life below her potential. She is in this debilitatingly immobilizing limbo of the mid-twenties when, having done what you thought you were supposed to do and following the path you thought you were supposed to follow, you find yourself 'here' but 'here' isn't where you want to be. Andrea Seigel's screenplay does a good job of satirically making fun of the trends Milennials are doing nowadays as they 'play' house – like first dances and potential baby names.

A good movie will have characters and themes you can identify with, that will help put a mirror to life and help you engage with the narrative. For some 20-somethings most of the film and Keira Knightley's portrayal of an existential crisis may be a bit too close for comfort. Thankfully Chloe Grace Moretz's character has a dad played by Sam Rockwell. Rockwell is the shining light of a comic savior within the film and lifts up the depressing moments of story to a entertainingly watchable movie.

Laggies is a fun one-time watch for 20-somethings to realize they could be more messed up and to find the humor within the perplexities of burgeoning adulthood.

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Laggies is a "coming of age" romantic comedy with a twist as the main character is not an adolescent, but is 28 years old. The film is not exceptional, but it is enjoyable, and its performances and story progression help to elevate an average film overall. Laggies begins by telling the story of Megan (played by Keira Knightley) whose longtime boyfriend (played by Mark Webber) has just proposed to her. Megan, having also just found out her father (played by Jeff Garlin) is having an extramarital affair, experiences a bit of an identity crisis, and doesn't know quite how to respond to her own marriage proposal. She plans a fake trip, in order to escape from her boyfriend for a week, and finds herself in the house of her newly found, 16 year old girlfriend, Annika (played by Chloe Grace Moretz), and her single, stern father, Craig, (played by Sam Rockwell).

The main characters go through changes as they begin to know each other. Megan starts out as a manipulative lying person who uses people, but as the film continues, she realizes this is not what she wants and begins to take charge of her own life by becoming more responsible. The character of Annika goes from being a risky teenager to becoming more of her own person, even confronting her own mother. Her father, Craig, goes through a character progression as he becomes less stuck-up and more of a person who actually cares for other people. All of three of the main characters story arcs nicely parallel each other. Out of all of the character arcs, I found Megan's due to Keira Knightley's performance, to be the most believable.

However, I did have my issues with this film. I found the boyfriend of the film, Anthony, to be a bit of a push-over and too much of a plot device. He gets introduced, gets a few scenes and then reappears during the climax. Another thing that bugged about the film, was an absurd scene where Knightley has to pose as Moretz's mother and I couldn't honestly believe that anyone would honestly believe that Knightley and Moretz were mother and daughter, what with the twelve years difference, and looking more like sisters.

There are some interesting directing choices by Lynn Shelton, including having the film start out with a flashback and then cutting to ten years later. As well as Knightley's introduction, where we see her listening to a CD player on the streets as she holds up a sign advertising her father's accounting business where she works. Check it out for yourself, and see what you think of it.

A woman who is approaching her thirties and still doesn't know what she wants from life (like most of us, I would say), accidentally meets a teenager and uses her to escape responsibility, at least for a short time. A romantic comedy elevated from mediocrity by a rather realistic depiction of the mental state that most of us go through at some point in our lives. Some go through it maturely and responsibly, even painlessly, but many bring themselves into tragicomic situations as the heroine of this film. Partly because I found myself in this story to some extent, and partly because of Keira Knightley and Chloë Grace Moretz, I have to rate it at least a little higher than it objectively deserves.

7/10