Shag

Set in 1963, Shag follows four friends (Bridget Fonda’s Melaina, Phoebe Cates’ Carson, Annabeth Gish’s Pudge, and Page Hannah’s Luanne) as they head to Myrtle Beach for a weekend of fun and debauchery. There’s ultimately not a whole lot within Shag worth getting excited about or engrossed in, as filmmaker Zelda Barron, working from Robin Swicord, Lanier Laney, and Terry Sweeney’s screenplay, delivers a lackadaisical and episodic drama that contains little in the way of attention-grabbing elements – with the movie’s passable vibe due almost entirely to the uniformly personable, entertaining performances. (Fonda is especially good here as the ambitious Melaina, certainly.) And although Barron admittedly does a superb job of capturing a very specific time and place, Shag‘s meandering atmosphere generally prevents the viewer from wholeheartedly connecting to the protagonists’ laid-back exploits – with the arms-length vibe persisting right up until around the halfway mark, after which point it does, admittedly, become difficult to resist the charming characters and their individually melodramatic subplots. The end result is a watchable yet utterly forgettable endeavor that’s rarely as engaging or captivating as its stars’ efforts, and it is, ultimately, impossible to label Shag as anything more than a really well-made showcase for some above-average acting and production design.

**1/2 out of ****

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