And you thought your high school's cool kids lived life in the fast lane.
Feast your eyes on dark teenage comedy Palo Alto, Gia Coppola's (yes, Francis Ford Coppola's granddaughter) directional debut in which she successfully adapts James Franco's short stories. Given how often teenagers have casual sex, are inebriated and reckless, one might question how much of this actually happened in Franco's hometown. But the actor attested to its validity. "It was taking from experiences that I'd had and other people who grew up with me in Palo Alto had," Franco said in a YouTube interview. "I also was aware that I was culling very dark material [that] felt really intense."
These intense situations haunt classmates April (Emma Roberts, We're The Millers) and Teddy (Jack Kilmer, who made his acting debut and whose dad Val Kilmer plays April's druggie stepdad), who have fallen off the deep end and might get back on track if they chill together more. Just as Teddy musters up the courage to hang out with April again, in swoops his sadistic "friend" Fred, sucking the life out of the long-haired beach blonde like a fully-charged vacuum cleaner full of weed. Every good movie needs an equally good villain, but Fred poses more annoyances than threats.
At the same time, April cannot get her soccer coach (James Franco, This Is the End) off of the brain. Her feelings are more than returned; she's pressured into getting freaky. The sex scene lures you in due to Coppola's elegant taste and soft close-ups. A moving shadow casts on April's smooth as porcelain face, symbolic of her innocence getting peeled away like each layer of an onion. The scene enacts the forbidden love described in The Police's "Don't Stand So Close To Me". And as revolting as their getting together might seem, a part of you might find it fascinating. Given this was loosely based off of reality, was there really a coach who preyed on young female athletes and got away with stealing their virginity? And if so, why would Franco want to play that skeevy dude? Thank goodness she comes to her senses in the end.
Roberts and Kilmer give refreshing performances, noteworthy since they're young and have lots of industry potential. The moral of the story: Hang out with people who care about you rather than those looking to dump their problems on you, use you; people do not change, no matter how many years have passed since grade school.
- LIZ KOBAK
Looking back at this...
Later on in the winter of 2014, I took acting classes at James Franco's now defunct school, Studio 4. The instructor was Alex Morf, whom James acted alongside on Broadway in "Of Mice and Men" earlier that year. The course was not only terribly expensive, but there lacked one-on-one instruction and kind of reminded me of Tommy Wiseau's '90s debut acting training in San Francisco. Alex was totally cool, though. In any event, when all of these sexual allegations surfaced against James by students from the Studio 4 program (mainly young women looking to break into an industry predominantly dominated by older men), it brought back memories of the roles he's chosen to play over the years (think that perverted gangster "Alien" in "Spring Breakers" and the creepy gym teacher who starts a relationship with a high schooler in the above film review of "Palo Alto"). James' career really started on "Freaks and Geeks", one of the most underrated television shows of all time. Bing watch that show if you need a good laugh; you won't regret it. Following that gig, James took roles as a heartthrob, stoner and adventurer ("127 Hours" landed him an Oscar nomination for best male actor). In most recent years, James didn't have to take roles from anyone, he created them for himself (essentially every movie he's starred in in the past five years). So, what's next? It seems that with the "Time's Up" movement flooding Hollywood, James comes across as just another so-called predator, that according to his allegers. But, is he? And how will his career be affected, if at all? It'll be interesting to see whether Franco can make a comeback following this scandal and his "Oscar snub" for his brilliant performance as Tommy Wiseau in the Academy Award-nominated film, "The Disaster Artist."