The Pulitzer-winning playwright's first film is the sort of minor masterpiece that changes how you think about family dynamics—and the moving pictures.
to kill myself if you don’t come and get me.” It’s hard to gauge the seriousness of the threat, given that the speaker is an 11-year-old girl named Lacy , the delivery is simultaneously end-of-the-world apocalyptic and stunningly casual, and the time and location is a summer-camp headquarters in the middle of the night circa 1991. Still, the recipient of the call — her mom, Janet — is there the next day, ready to take her daughter home.
Except Lacy has changed her mind. Her sudden departure has earned the tween some much-desired attention from her peers. Plus Mom’s boyfriend is in the car. Why is he still around? Now Lacy wants to stay. Can she please stay? People actually like her. No, Mom says with just a hint of exasperation. You’ve made your choice and you have to live with it. Besides, she adds, I’ve already convinced them to give me back part of your deposit.
Soon, Avi — the troupe’s alpha male and Regina’s ex — starts to come calling for Janet. He, too, seems fated to fade into the ether like so many past suitors. Meanwhile, Lacy sits on the sidelines, taking it all in. She’s trying to make sense of the adult world through her mom’s interactions, missteps, triumphs and false starts. Given that Janet hasn’t quite mastered every aspect of said world, you wonder what lessons this youngster is picking up. It’s a house filled with love, for sure.
There’s a signature ambiguity, or maybe it’s simply a distrust of easy, bow-tied dramatic solutions, that colors where the story ends up as well. I’ve thought for months about‘s ending, and how it’s left open and unresolved in a way that suggests the contours and complicated aspects of a real mother-daughter relationship rather than a fictional one.
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