Plot
In 1988, a teenage girl's life is thrown into chaos when her mother disappears.
Release Year: 2014
Rating: 6.6/10 (3,972 voted)
Critic's Score: 50/100
Director: Gregg Araki
Stars: Shailene Woodley, Eva Green, Christopher Meloni
Storyline
Kat Connors is 17 years old when her seemingly perfect homemaker mother, Eve, disappears in 1988. Having lived for so long in an emotionally repressed household, she barely registers her mother's absence and certainly doesn't blame her doormat of a father, Brock, for the loss. But as time passes, Kat begins to come to grips with how deeply Eve's disappearance has affected her. Returning home on a break from college, she finds herself confronted with the truth about her mother's departure, and her own denial about the events surrounding it...
Writers: Gregg Araki, Laura Kasischke
Cast: Shailene Woodley -
Kat Connor
Eva Green -
Eve Connor
Angela Bassett -
Dr. Thaler
Sheryl Lee -
May
Gabourey Sidibe -
Beth
Christopher Meloni -
Brock Connor
Thomas Jane -
Detective Scieziesciez
Shiloh Fernandez -
Phil
Dale Dickey -
Mrs. Hillman
Mark Indelicato -
Mickey
Jacob Artist -
Ava Acres -
Kat (age 8)
Tia Barr -
Secretary
Brenda Koo -
Cindy
Michael Patrick McGill -
Aaron
Trivia: Eva Green, who plays Shailene Woodley's mother in the film is, in reality, only 12 years older than Woodley. See more »
Goofs:
When Kat visits for the first time Theo's apartment, the beer bottle sometimes appears on the table or in her hands. See more »
Quotes:
User Review
Author:
Rating: 8/10
Kat is a 17-year-old girl in the suburbs, growing up in the late 1980s
and observing her parents' dysfunctional marriage at close hand while
trying to cope with first love, relationships, sex and friendships -
all the growing pains that being 17 involves. When her mother
disappears one day, the police think she's probably run off, perhaps
with a boyfriend; Kat thinks her mother just got so fed up with her
boring, empty, perfect-housewife life that she finally left it to find
something better. Kat herself doesn't know how she feels about that;
truly, she doesn't really feel much of anything, especially because her
mother had recently been so intrusive in her life. Her father seems
meek and lost after her mother leaves, but both of them will eventually
have to pick up the pieces and go on. If only Kat would stop having
those disturbing dreams about where her mother might be....
This is really far more of a coming-of-age story than it is anything
else; aside from some dream images, there's very little that would fit
the term "fantastical," even though I saw it at Montreal's Fantasia
Festival. There is some very fine acting, from Eva Green as the mother,
Shailene Woodley as Kat, Christopher Meloni as Kat's father and Thomas
Jane as a police detective, and both writer/director Gregg Araki (from
the novel by Laura Kasischke) and the cast do a very good job of
capturing that confusing stage of adolescence, where one is not quite
fully grown up but is certainly not at all a child anymore either. I
very much enjoyed the film, even if Fantasia is an odd place to see it!
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