2 Things @ Once

USA, written and directed by David Gordon Green
Starring Zooey Deschanel, Paul Schneider and Patricia Clarkson

Good girl Zooey Deschanel falls for a bad boy and they proceed to have a teen romance filled with lots of lip locking and inane dialog. Quirky, “real” characters abound in this independent (with a capital “I”) drama set in small-town North Carolina. For the first half of the film I felt like every scene began in the middle of some conversation that the audience had just walked in on. (And not in a good, arty kinda way.) I didn’t know what they were talking about and quickly didn’t care.

Main characters speak as if they had oatmeal in their brains. The acting, especially in the BIG EMOTIONAL scenes comes off like amateur hour, as if the actors were handed a rough outline and told to wing it moments before stepping in front of the camera. A frustrating film experience that I couldn’t wait to end. [**]