Palo Alto

As you may or may not know, I am partial to a good Coming of Age Drama/ Teen pic and I have to say, for me, Palo Alto ticks all the boxes in this genre. What also draws me to the film is the fact that it's directed by a female- which we all know is a rarity in the film industry. Palo Alto is 27 year old, Gia Coppola's Directional debut,  based on a collection of short stories by James Franco. 

At first glance Palo Alto has the appearance of a generic female orientated movie, mainly due to the fact that it stars Emma Roberts who is regularly typecast as your stereotypical teenage drama queen. However, I do not believe this is the case, as the film also focuses on the destructive relationship between stoner, Teddy and his disturbed best friend, Fred, who seems adamant on keeping Teddy on the same wayward path as himself. Teddy and April are both infatuated with one another but neither have the confidence to admit it. Meanwhile, pervy soccer coach, Mr B (James Franco), exploits naive and vulnerable April, who babysits for his son. 

I must admit the film is slightly superficial and packed full of high school stereotypes: the stoner, the slut, the creepy teacher - all of which detract attention from the films attributes: the stunning cinematography and convincing yet significant performances from Emma Roberts and Jack Kilmer.

Despite coming across as a quirky low budget Indie American film, with a budget of only $1 million, in my opinion, Palo Alto is far from it, as a large percentage of the cast, crew and even director come from established Hollywood families. This leaves me to question if its positive reception at Telluride, Venice and Tribeca, was in fact down to its artistic merit or if it was due to its numerous connections and contacts within the film industry. However, regardless of the films positive reception and understandably high praise for both cinematography and soundtrack, it didn't manage to breakeven, making a loss of just over $80,000. Like many films of its type that premiere at multiple film festivals, they often have a limited release and due to minimal publicity, don't tend to expand to a wider release. I also doubt that Palo Alto was successful when the it came to DVD sales either; but good old Netflix came to the rescue, giving us Brits the opportunity to watch it, and from what I gather, the British teen demographic are suckers for films about the existentialistic struggle through adolescence.

Although the film may be seen as an honest and moving portrayal of wasted youth, it hardly captures the raw and exploitive edge like, for instance, Larry Clark or Harmony Korine have in the past. Nevertheless, Palo Alto is surprisingly engaging for a film riddled with teen angst clichés and in which your standard well-off but misunderstood teen's main form of rebellion is through substance abuse and casual sex as they stumble into adulthood.