Palm Trees and Power Lines (2023)
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Palm Trees and Power Lines Movie Review
Palm Trees and Power Lines is a 2023 drama film directed by Jamie Dack and starring Lily McInerny and Jonathan Tucker. It’s a very uncomfortable, but important movie.
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“Some people just have no business having kids“
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A disconnected teenage girl enters a relationship with a man twice her age. She sees him as the solution to all her problems, but his intentions are not what they seem. This is a film that everybody should watch at some point in spite of its extremely dark and difficult subject matter. But this issue is important to know about and it’s so rarely depicted on film that this indie feature was groundbreaking in that regard.
Lily McInerny delivered one outstanding central performance that will hopefully propel her career going forward. She particularly sold those more nuanced, emotional moments in the third act. As for Jonathan Tucker, he was also great and quite adept at portraying this man’s immensely manipulative and disturbing tactics and demeanor.
You see, most of the time when it comes to rape, it doesn’t happen in a dark alley and in a violent fashion as most movies would make you believe. In fact, real life is much more complicated than that and often times girls fall prey to men who are much subtler in their manipulations. How Tom tricked Lea here was difficult, but important to watch as he at first gained her trust by being sweet and romantic and eventually he proposed an offer that she couldn’t refuse and that led to that heartbreaking, horrifying third act.
The scene in the motel is very difficult to watch as it was extremely realistic and the camera never flinched away from what was happening on the screen. This resulted in an overly graphic, horrifying sequence that was too detailed, but again necessary for this type of story. The ending itself was particularly hard to stomach as it was not the resolution that we would all hope to witness, but exactly the opposite. It was somewhat unbelievable, yet absolutely terrifying to behold.
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Palm Trees and Power Lines is an indie movie that was obviously made on the cheap – the cinematography is only serviceable, the score is mostly non-existent and the film’s editing was subpar. But the directing from debuting director Jamie Dack was quite promising and the acting performances as well as the dialogue were uniformly fantastic.
Palm Trees and Power Lines is an indie drama that deals with a very difficult, but important subject matter. It depicts grooming in a realistically subtle and all the more horrific manner. The acting performances and dialogue are very strong, and the treatment of this issue is smartly nuanced and complex. The ending was incredibly uncomfortable and too terrifying to watch, but that immense realism was difficult not to admire.
My Rating – 4
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