The Tribes of Palos Verdes
December. 01,2017 RWhen the situation at her idyllic Palos Verdes home turns volatile, young Medina attempts to surf her way to happiness.
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Reviews
The Worst Film Ever
Redundant and unnecessary.
Excellent but underrated film
The acting in this movie is really good.
Jennifer as always is absolutely phenomenal. However, the main characters voice throughout the movie is just awful. I don't know what it is, but I her voice just irked me. The entire movie was predictable and cheesy and the voice on top of that just made it all worse. Jennifer garner helps keep this at a 2.
Another reviewer referred to this film as "cruel." I think a better word is "sad." It was quite well done. Despite anticipating the brother's demise, I was moved to tears at the end. The film did a great job of showing the complexities of being in a nuclear family in the 21st century, though, to be honest, I wasn't sure of the time frame until Facebook was mentioned. In most films that take place today the cell phone plays a major role and in this film it didn't, though they did Skype. Anyway, Jennifer Garner is usually not a favorite of mine, but her acting in this film was excellent as was Maika Monroe's. The complex emotions exchanged by the members of this broken upper middle class family were realistic, palpable, and multi-dimensional. For example, it would have been easy to simply hate the father (Justin Kirk) for falling out of love with his wife and leaving his family for another one, yet one scene in which he explains himself to his daughter, bore some truths which made me feel empathy for him as well as the others. The story was presented with depth which is what made it successful, in my opinion. It's not a happy film, or even particularly hopeful, but it is a realistic slice of life and engrossing.
This is a very good movie, people and characters in it are all look real. The broken marriages to so many families nowadays in almost every country of the world not only affected so many husbands and wives but also seriously messed up their children. America's social infrastructure is like a broken and shattered glass, so many broken families, so many toilet relationships, so many twisted hardship that kids have to deal with their parents' bad marriage. America has become a weird family tree, its branches and leaves so complicated, either the wives carried their kids to new marriage, or the husbands brought their kids from his first, second or even 3rd marriage to newest wives, while their newer wives or husbands also got their own kids from their former marriages. More divorces simply complicated the family tree's growth and burdened it to unknown, unpredictable and unfathomable abyss. Kids growing up from such broken families many have twisted views almost to everything that ensured them to repeat the same or similar situations of their own marriages, their relationship to their opposite gender. They would become a bad copy of their parents and usually, the 2nd or the 3rd copy will be always worse than its 1st edition.This is a very cruel but up close and personal film that I could hardly be able to watch to the end. I pity the three young children from two different broken families. The hardships they have to deal with 24/7 are so cruel and unbearable. I felt so sad while watching it and couldn't resist thinking of my elder son's broken marriage, and the grandson jammed in between his mother and father. The hardship my son has to deal with everyday is beyond every word could be described. This film is just too cruel to watch.....
Greetings again from the darkness. Since there is always "trouble in paradise", perhaps living in paradise shouldn't even be a life goal. There are certainly less expensive ways to enjoy a nice view than relocating the family from the frozen Midwestern leisure of Michigan to the ultra-rich, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses hypocrisy of Palos Verdes. Joy Nicholson's 1997 book has been adapted for the screen by writer Karen Croner. Brothers Brendan Malloy and Emmett Malloy co- direct in what appears to be their feature film debut after 15 plus years of music-related videos, shorts and documentaries.The Masons move into a cliff-side mansion in Palos Verdes. The breathtaking Pacific Ocean view is supposed to offset the homogenized exclusive suburbia punctuated with manicured lawns, freshly painted homes, and close-minded wealthy folks. That works for Phil (Justin Kirk), the cardiologist who does see this as paradise and hopes his family will feel the same. His wife Sandy (Jennifer Garner) is struggling with depression, and their twin 16 year old kids Medina (Maika Monroe) and Jim (Cody Fern) are personality opposites he being the popular kid, while she is a loner.Since we all know new curtains don't fix a broken window, the fractured family is soon on full display. The dysfunction came along as part of their relocation and much of this can be traced to Sandy's manic-depressive state. The stress-related fallout is ugly. Phil finds comfort in the arms of their Realtor (Alicia Silverstone), who scores a doctor to go along with her commission. This sends Sandy spiraling down the rabbit hole, as Jim starts experimenting with drugs, and Medina seeks peace on a surfboard that she procured through a most unusual negotiation. Most of the story is told from Medina's perspective, and Ms. Monroe excels. Her breakout role was a couple of years ago in IT FOLLOWS, and though she's a bit too old to play a 16 year old, she is so talented and relatable that to whatever extent the movie works for you, it's likely to be because of her. The way she handles the cold distance between she and her mother is heartbreaking, yet her sadness and frustration at being the only one recognizing the fall of brother Jim is truly devastating.The ultra-angst is sometimes a bit too heavy, as is the over-use of slow-motion and the intrusive indie music (as you might expect from music video directors). Many will hail Jennifer Garner's performance since it is so far removed from her usual grinning and lovable type, but I found her a bit too extreme and trying too hard. Despite these issues, the mystic draw of the sea makes perfect sense as Medina literally surfs the choppy waves of life. A threat of disaster is always on the cusp, and the filmmakers take full advantage of the contrasting beautiful setting. Finding our tribe is a key to life and we are privileged to follow along with rising star Maika Monroe's fabulous performance.