Review: “Palo Alto”

I would imagine that releasing a “debut feature” is a nerve-wracking experience for a director, but when your name is Gia Coppola it has to have some added layers of serious anxiety. Granddaughter of New Hollywood icon Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Gia follows in the footsteps of her aunt Sofia (Lost in Translation, Bling Ring) and uncle Roman (the ill-fated A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III) and into the director’s chair for her debut Palo Alto, based on a 2010 collection of short stories by actor James Franco, and she luckily falls into the same cool and sophisticated camp as her stylish aunt. While it’s easy to dismiss an emerging Coppola as riding on the fame and piggybank of his/her legendary family tree, as many did to Sofia in her early days, Gia displays a unique, accomplished vision here that is not only quite assured for a first time filmmaker but is also confident enough to warrant interest in whatever she does next. Taking a standard coming-of-age story – where the kids aimlessly navigate their transition into adulthood while their parents remain just as out of the loop – and injecting it with artistic flare, Gia takes this tired genre and gives it a sensitive, excitingly nonchalant edge. This isn’t the loud rebellion of The Breakfast Club or the existential crises of The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Palo Alto is something of an artful breeze – it’s familiar but refreshing and, at the end of the day, you’ll be grateful it made it your way.

The film follows three youths navigating the teenage wastelands of Palo Alto, California. April (Emma Roberts) is the class virgin, and one of Coppola’s screenplay’s biggest strengths is how it doesn’t turn our lead character into the saintly pure student clad in white. April is a virgin, yes, but that doesn’t define her and the screenplay doesn’t box her into this tired character arch-type. Roberts has proven herself a capable performer of spunk in the past, but here, in her best performance to date, she is utterly convincing as a toned down, nervous teen looking for more than the plunging-neckline sluts and hot-headed bad boys that populate her high school. April isn’t a virgin because of strict parents or unwavering faith or desperate naivety (Roberts actually gives her a layer of self-defined confidence that most “coming-of-age virgins” would only dream of), she’s just smart enough to know that she shouldn’t share such a personal side of herself with any of her troubled classmates. It’s for this reason that she’s attracted to her gentle, kind soccer coach, Mr. G (Franco in a very subdued, effective supporting turn), and their relationship takes interesting and emotional turns as April ends up being more than just his child’s babysitter.

Naturally, there is one classmate that is perfect for April, her friend Teddy (Jack Kilmer), a soft-spoken skater who lives in the shadow of his impassioned best friend, Ned (a fiery Nat Wolff). Jack Kilmer is the son of actor Val (who shows up briefly here as April’s stepfather), and he is the film’s startling revelation, injecting Teddy with a quiet loneliness that is heartbreaking. As much as you want Teddy to find his own voice, you can see why he’s seduced by the idea of maturity that Fred thinks he already projects, and the two’s shenanigans lead to an unfortunate run in with the police and, for Teddy, a one night blow job with class slut Emily (the radiant Zoe Levin) that complicates what could be a healthy union between him and April. While Wolff does a lot of angry yelling, he subtly hints at the trouble beneath Fred’s tight-wound personality. As Fred gets involved with Emily and the line between sexual attraction and emotional connection begins to clash (captured by a wonderful dream shot of Emily gorgeously flirting with the camera in slow-motion), his issues come to light as Wolff nails the uneasy horror in figuring out one’s problems when it’s already too late. Even Levin adds layered depth to the “class slut”, fleshing out a brief supporting role with resonant feeling.

Though nothing earth-shatteringly monumental ends up happening amongst these clueless high school seniors, Coppola is less interested in the plot points of “coming-of-age” than she is in the feeling and situation of it. Note how at parties Coppola and gifted cinematographer Autumn Durald shroud April in a depressed, moody blue light, or how during the inevitable sex scene between April and Mr. G, they abandon all the possible creepiness of the storyline by shooting naked body parts (a hand, torso, lips, legs, etc.) in dim, jazzy lighting against a stark black background, providing more seductive heat than most R-rated sex scenes ever do. Moments like these prove that Coppola has artistic sensibilities that make her one to watch behind the camera.

Ultimately, the film becomes more thought provoking than it should be as it digs underneath the trappings of youth. There’s a reason the first shot of the film is of the camera gliding down a fence to reveal April smoking a cigarette outside of it. It’s an image of sly rebellion, but in seconds April finds herself hopping over and returning to the other side, back to the confines of “coming-of-age”. This idea – of trying to break out of our situations only to find that we’re stuck in them – is the backbone of Coppola’s vision. All of the teens want desperately to escape youth and to be mature only to realize too late that the congeniality of innocence they once adored is never coming back. When Teddy is forced to do community service, it’s not a coincidence that he first starts at a children’s library before working at an elderly home, the dichotomy of young and old being a painful reminder of the progress of situations and our inability to control it. And it’s not just the kids, as Coppola wisely shows the adults just as desperate to achieve a different age and mindset. Though brief, we get a look at April’s mom, dressed in sexy yoga pants and never without a phone, and of Fred’s dad (Chris Messina), a pot smoking cool guy who makes a flirting pass at Teddy. Though it may seem clichéd to address the clueless parents, Coppola does not make these scenes noisy in any way; all of them are quick and rather comical, only to reveal themselves at the end to be carefully constructed interludes that heighten the film’s thesis of stationary youth and maturity in rebellion.

Like Sofia Coppola’s films, Palo Alto has a lonely, quiet moodiness and is full of spot on, retro song choices, but Gia inspires a more deeply-felt connection between the viewer and the characters than her usually cold and detached aunt does. Palo Alto is unquestionably a “coming-of-age” film, but it takes what’s old and makes it new again. Welcome to the family, Gia.

8/10

Review by Zack Sharf