THE LACK OF hope in one’s life can create situations fueled by desperation. It is one thing to ignore the perceived bleakness; but when one comes face to face with it, life looks like it has turned into a series of extremes. There was a person who used to work in the same department as me whose life was a series of extreme events. She would tell us about some of her hardships, but only after the fact. In other words, for example she would sign up for these different so called easy money earning jobs that promised big earnings. The only thing she would have to do is pay a couple of hundred dollars for the sales kit that would have everything she needed to start making money quickly. If she would have said something to anyone in the department beforehand they could have warned her it was just a scam, but she never did and then wondered why she could not get ahead on her bills.     BELIEVING YOU WERE dealt a bad hand in the game of life can feel like a constant burden of negative emotions. Depression, anger and hate would be a few that come to mind. I remember there was a new fashion trend in clothing that everyone in school was running to the stores in search of, not wanting to be left out of it. I was one of those who also went on the hunt for the clothing; however, every store I went to did not have my size. At first I wistfully hoped they were just out of stock but I knew better. None of the stores I visited carried my large size. This may sound trivial but back then school was all about fitting in or becoming an outcast. I am embarrassed to admit this but I even saved up money to see if I could have a tailor or seamstress make the clothes for me in my size. Looking back the adult me would never have cared one way or the other whether I wore a new fashion trend, but as I said desperation has a way of altering one’s priorities.     WITHOUT A SENSE of hope or purpose Frankie, played by Harris Dickinson (Home-TV movie, Clique-TV), was looking for something that would satisfy the feelings he had bottled inside. Friends and family would not be able to provide any help. This film festival winning drama also starred relative newcomer Madeline Weinstein playing Simone, Kate Hodge (Rapid Fire, She-Wolf of London-TV) as Donna and Neal Huff (Split, Moonrise Kingdom) as Joe. Set in Brooklyn I found the style of filming created a stark realness to the scenes; in some ways it almost seemed like I was watching a documentary. There were multiple close-up scenes that lingered on characters’ faces so the viewer could get a feeling for the emotions being felt. This style helped the acting but overall I found the pacing exceptionally slow and drawn out. With the lack of any major dramatic scenes I felt everything was contained in a narrow band of emotions which did not help in the entertainment value of this story. I did not feel any connections to the characters, along with not knowing exactly what motivated them. There was a physical darkness to the film that I took was done on purpose to make scenes look more bleak. Unfortunately that despair was being felt by me as I did not see my feelings about this movie improving.

2 stars