The Young Arsonists

Directed by Sheila Pye, The Young Arsonists follows five teen friends in the 1980s as they bond over their broken home lives and attempt to figure a way out of their respective far-from-ideal situations. First-time filmmaker Pye, working from her own screenplay, delivers an often pervasively uninvolving endeavor that remains hopelessly unable to capture the viewer’s interest and attention, as the movie’s been saddled with an exceedingly, excessively familiar scenario that results in an almost total lack of forward momentum – with the arms-length atmosphere perpetuated by an assortment of stock central characters that couldn’t possibly be less compelling or sympathetic. And although Pye has admittedly infused the proceedings with a thoroughly (and impressively) striking visual sensibility, with the movie virtually packed with arresting images, The Young Arsonists eventually progresses into a violent and surreal/abstract third act that is, to put it mildly, anticlimactic (ie it just doesn’t work in the slightest) – which does, in the end, cement the movie’s place as an ambitious debut that could only have succeeded in the context of a short.

* out of ****