Amy George

It’s really rather remarkable just how insufferable Amy George eventually becomes, as the movie initially comes off as a deliberately-paced yet relatively agreeable coming-of-age story that boasts a striking visual sensibility and several strong performances. But the film, which follows 13-year-old Jesse (Gabriel del Castillo Mullally) as he awkwardly deals with a variety of issues, has been infused with a pervasively aimless feel that grows more and more problematic as time progresses, which does ensure that one’s efforts at working up sympathy for or interest in the protagonist’s meandering exploits fall flat on an increasingly regular basis. Filmmakers Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas’ ongoing difficulties in capturing the viewer’s interest are exacerbated by an emphasis on scenes and sequences of a decidedly inconsequential nature, with the most obvious example of this an absolutely interminable interlude revolving around Jesse’s monotonous attempts at describing everything he sees at a nearby playground. The aggressively uneventful atmosphere slowly-but-surely renders the movie’s few positive attributes moot, as there inevitably reaches a point at which the viewer begins to pray that something (anything) of consequence would occur. It is, as such, clear that the central character simply never becomes the wholeheartedly compelling protagonist that Lewis and Thomas want him to be, with the end result an overly avant-garde piece of work that might have worked as a 15-minute short but just feels endless within the context of a feature.

* out of ****