Amy George
Art and, well, some other stuff are felt out in this adolescent journey of self-discovery.
SCREENINGS:
Tuesday, September 13, 6 p.m.
AMC 9 (10 Dundas Street East)
Thursday, September 15, 9:15 p.m.
AMC 2 (10 Dundas Street East)
Saturday, September 17, 12:30 p.m.
AMC 10 (10 Dundas Street East)
It’s fitting that two relative youngsters eager to make an artistic impression deal with just that. Amy George stars 13-year-old newcomer Gabriel del Castillo Mullally as Jesse, a middle-schooler tasked with a photography assignment framed as a journey of self-discovery (shoot something that says who you are, that isn’t just a self-portrait, as fine a definition of art as any). After reading that a great artist must a) suffer and b) make love to a woman, Jesse sets about peering at the titular Amy George (Emily Henry), a classmate who doesn’t seem to return his aww-shucks affections.
More than his unrequited crush, it’s Jesse’s knob-kneed stumble into sexuality that forms the film’s subject. Both his parents and best buddy wonder if he’s gay, and Jesse’s own peeping tom exploration into Amy’s bedroom window and the operations of a local “rub and tug” believably stage a confused late entry into adolescence. The performances are solid, proving that this would-be wunderkind duo know how to extract good work from their performers. But Lewis and Thomas frame everything super-shaky, and super-dim, with some scenes naturally lit to the point of visual illegibility. The film’s soundtrack, throbbing and far too prominent, also muddies things a bit. It’s a fine effort, even if a little blandly put together. Maybe the filmmakers just need to suffer more. Or make love to a woman.