11/22/2019, @ Angelika Film Center & Café. Love how confident, fearless, open, and concise the work is. A portrait of growing up with emotional turbulence, insecurity, and aloneness. The excruciating process of making the wounds exposed, cleansed, and healed. 12-year-old Otis was hopelessly falling and it takes all of 22-year-old Otis to search for and gaze at the very source of his brokenness. I was marveled at the spectacular, heartbreakingly beautiful performances from Lucas, Noah, and Shia from start to finish. Lucas is present and clear-cut as always, Noah is such a beautiful, beautiful revelation, and Shia is completely a force of nature. By that swimming pool, Lucas with Shia, in that fleeting moment, I was able to see the transformation of Otis: he’s much lighter. And Lucas dealt with it with such nuance, effortlessness, and simplicity. It just made me cry. And the final motorcycle sequences - it seems that the ghost (his father and the pain that he gave) of his past has been lifted and he has to move forward alone. 非常感动。#Every true story is a poignant story.#
