Picture Day (2013)

Directed by: Kate Miles Melville
Country: Canada

Review: “Picture Day” is a well-intended, yet modest coming-of-age tale about 18 year-old Claire (Tatiana Maslany), an irreverent girl who is repeating the last year of High School. Known for missing classes and having promiscuous sexual adventures, Claire escapes from her boring quotidian life by hanging out with Jim (Steven McCarthy), a 33 year-old rock singer she met in a concert. Simultaneously, she finds out that Henry (Spencer Van Wyck), a genius boy whom she used to babysit when he was a kid, attends the same school and just like her, is a sort of an outcast. They become true friends after smoking a joint together,  helping each other from then on, in problems so identifiable with adolescence. Newcomer director Kate Melville creates a realistic scenario of irreverent youth with predictable romanticism, where the weight of different family backgrounds can be sensed in the way that the main characters reacted to the responsibilities of growing up. A direct and delicate approach was assumed, in a mildly entertaining film that despite clear in its message, seemed too distant to involve.