
The recent years have witnessed some truly sensitive and sympathetic films addressing sensitive issues such as grooming teenage girls, particularly by older men. These include Palm Trees and Power Lines by Jamie Dack which won Sundance and Good Girl Jane by Sarah Elizabeth Mintz who won at Tribeca. Unfortunately, the mishap “What Comes Around” from director Amy Redford and screenwriter Scott Organ is truly the scope of what happens when filmmakers lack sensitivity and instead fall into the area of exploitation.
We meet Anna (Grace Van Dien) on the eve of turning seventeen. She seems engrossed in a text conversation on poetry with one Eric (Kyle Gallner), a presumed college student who lives a mere 900 miles away. Eyes glinted with joy, Anna enjoyed how he likened her to Emily Dickinson. She is a resident with her mother, Beth (Summer Phoenix), who is single and recently engaged to her boyfriend Tim (Jesse Garcia) who is the Assistant Chief of Police.
The trio seems to be living a normal life until on her birthday Eric decides to show up unannounced, giving Anna a book of Dickinson’s poetry as a gift. In the beginning, Anna is perplexed by such a show and for some reason takes the gift as something too aggressive. However, documentaries tend to moralize themselves, and so do people. After realizing that Eric is 28, rather than looking 20 she is more than willing to accept her initial theory. On the walk to school, Anna is shockingly dressed in a conservative Catholic schoolgirl outfit slowly their age difference is made prominent by Redford.
Just like that, she is covering him with her cloak in the closet. In the kitchen, there is a turnout that entails unicorn hats and pink cake for a vegan birthday celebration – clearly set up by both Tim and Beth. While you suppose that is where the movie delves into the impacts of groomer Eric, these characters take a turn and do a complete shift, reminiscent of old-school lifetime movies. Single-handed instantaneous changes – general tables switching.
While she was his student and he was a teenager, Jess and Beth do take heed considering the relationship with Anna which was well set out on the revenge plans. There was a clear shift in Jess’s character regarding motivation portrayal and that is what made this film slippery.
In more focused eyes, the twist in the film fosters the concept of bias in the narrative surrounding teenage boys being groomed versus teenage girls. But the writers prefer to just address the issue slightly. Instead of tackling the main subject, they chose the ‘gaslighting Eric’ route to discuss pointless dialogue of unreliable memories deviating from the main character.
The film is set entirely in Utah, Redford’s narrow selection of locations – Anna’s bedroom, a few living rooms, a schoolyard, and a forest – strengthen the plot’s performative elements. This is also true of the film’s conversation, where the performers appear to be reading each other’s lines instead of having any normal speech interaction.
Setting aside the gross plotting, powerful performers are necessary to make a piece like this succeed. Van Dien does what she can with her underwritten character, but is frequently outshined by Reina Hardesty’s dynamic performance as her best friend Brit. Phoenix is underwater after the twist, and especially in the second to last scene, which itself has yet another twist, she’s struggling. Garcia is sort of like a bystander, nothing more than a person whose responses toward the movie’s plotting, considering the character’s background, make no sense.
With the character of Eric, Gallner appears to be the only one with the option of adding some depth, as he stirs the dish to their chemistry. He is created in such a way that he peels the charm off with Van Dien. Even so, in the beginning, Redford shoots these scenes with Eric seducing Anna in a way that’s florid and they come off more like typical adolescent love than grooming scenes. After the reveal, Eric becomes more than a one-dimensional character to his Gallner, exposing him as an oddly shattered young man. It’s sad that once more, Redford opts to use this imagery in a manner that is oh-so familiar Hollywood and TV sensational.
In the end, “What Comes Around” is nothing but a cheap fill-in of the lives of Anna and Eric’s unhappy teens with no focus on the implications of these acts. The focus of Redford’s movie pitifully clings to this inherently horrifying type of abuse to craft an almost monotonous thriller without any thrill at all, if we can even call it that while being a cautionary tale with no caution.
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