Title: 18 to Party
Rating: NR
Director: Jeff Roda
Starring: Taylor Richardson, Sam McCarthy, Tanner Flood
Runtime: 1 hr 19 mins

What It Is: A group of 8th graders wait anxiously outside a venue for their turn to attend a party that the older kids attend. As they wait for the seemingly endless hours, old drama returns and comes to a head when their personalities clash.

What We Think: This was a rather straightforward, if not drawling watch. First, what I do commend about this movie, I’d like to say I really, really appreciate. Since the entire cast is (presumably) underage, the performances noting that characteristic makes them even more respectable. While they weren’t all solid hits, a tremendous majority of the child acting was pretty stupendous. Given/despite the material they had to work with, they all display great talent in their delivery and focus on character that I believe they all have huge potential for continued great acting careers in the future. That being said, the said material they did have to work with was, personally, less than the bar it needed to reach. While it’s not for the lack of care and trying, the script focuses too much on this cyclical roundabout conversation that paces unnaturally among its characters, for whatever reason are directed to be quick, swift, and automatic—it was unnatural. And for the sake of what I think the script was going for, it did not do it or its capable young cast any good. The back and forth between the young characters almost doesn’t make any sense—no adolescent talks like that. Understandably desired to be “a well-rounded, intelligent, and profound set of subjects who act beyond their age”, it nonetheless was overshot and doesn’t strike as believable. Even adults don’t talk like that. It felt all too rehearsed, though in that statement would perfectly puzzle in with the motif that this movie very obviously follows suit of the structure of theater—a character-driven story taking place in two basic sets, the way the conflicts are set up and resolved, this movie almost wants to be a play more than it is sound to be a movie. Not to say it didn’t have anything remarkable as a movie in its medium—the naturalistic yet smooth camerawork and bangin’ are certainly desirable—but story-wise, I felt this melodrama about teens and tweens tried too hard to say something.

Our Grade: C-, Not a fail, but not interesting enough for much of an afterthought. I appreciate many of the technical things, even the simplicity in the production as it does feel like it’s driven towards realism, but unfortunately, the painful dialogue of a group of kids constantly berating, annoying, and arguing with each other over nothing gets old real fast. Almost reminiscent of the video game Life is Strange but without the superpowers, this flick might serve better as a play with more written into it.