User Reviews

I watched this movie thinking that this movie is actually one of those light-hearted family comedy-drama. I was pleasantly surprised that it served more... much much more.

As the plot summary already contained, this movie is the coming-of-age tale of Lucy, a smart 15-year old girl who's a product of teenage pregnancy. Her father is pretty much absent most of the year because he has to work as a lumberjack somewhere. And while he is an absentee father, he is very much committed to provide for his family. As her dad (played by James Marden) grew up in an orphanage, he has a longing to have a traditional family where the mother stays at home while the father goes away to find livelihood. Her mother, having deprived of living a single life being married at an early age, tries to live the single life ---while trying to hold on to her family --- with disastrous consequences.

The first half of the movie started out fantastic, taking its time to establish the main players in Lucy's life which is mainly her parents and her best friend since they were kids, Kenny. Contrary to one of the user reviews here, Lucy and Kenny are not "unreal". Although they were not your typical average teenagers driven by raging hormones, these type of kids exist (I would know, I'm one of them). Their belief system were mainly shaped by the family they were born in. Kenny, a product of divorced parents looks forward to a relationship that will last but is very pragmatic which pretty much stops him from going for things he really wants. Lucy, having parents who were unprepared to be parents, has to overcompensate for her parent's irresponsibility. However, as any teenager who goes through self-discovery, she eventually started exploring her sexuality and romantic relationships unguided. And as any teenager who goes through bouts of angst and anger, she also started unraveling.

All of these drew me in. Sarah Bolger, who plays Lucy, embodied the part so well that it's quite hard not to fall for her--- flaws and all. Claire Danes and James Marden, for the most part, were effective and sometimes brilliant.

However, the movie started to fell apart when it tried to do too much. And instead of focusing on one theme... it started adding in heavy sub-plots that didn't go anywhere or if it did, it didn't come to a satisfying close that will eventually support the main plot. And when you start stacking more and more, it's bound to fall apart. Not that the sub-plots were bad. Had this been a TV mini-series, it would have been more effective because these sub-plots could have been explored at length. But considering the medium, it just weighted the movie down... hard...

And it's an extreme disservice because the first half of the movie was really good. There were some well put together which showed moments of brilliance. As much as I want to remember the movie for it, I can't erase from memory the last 30 minutes and especially that ending that wasted great talents like Peter Fonda. And suddenly, the movie ends with a whimper... as if the writer just ran out of paper to write on. In coming of age movies like this one, it's important that the main characters have to come face to face with the need to evolve and move from point a to b. And although the ending somehow shows us that Lucy finds peace in surrendering to her fate. It felt abrupt and forced.

Honestly, I would give this a movie a 6/10 but the 5.5 rating is I think too low for a movie that actually showed a lot of promise. So never mind the last 30 minutes of the movie, I still fell in love with Lucy so I'm giving this a 7.

Sixteen-year-old Lucy (Sarah Bolger) is a tomboy. She gets on well with her father (James Marsden) but is frequently separated from him for months on end when he goes to work in Canada. Her relationship with her mother (Claire Danes) is easy-going and she takes care of most things around the house. She tunes into her sexuality and her not so 'stable' family dynamics. She develops a relationship with her best friend Kenny (Thomas Mann) and starts to realize that her parents' marriage is not as solid as she had previously imagined. She notices that her father's extended stays away from the family are not typical, and that her mother does not pine for her father as much as she herself does.

After watching this movie, I feel like Sarah Bolger is a naturally talented actress. She can hold your attention the entire time she's on screen. The rest of the actors are all fine. This is a small compelling chapter in a young girl's life. Lucy doesn't shun the mainstream stereotypical look of girls, as much as she naturally develops into her own person with her own traits. She realizes that she doesn't have a 'stable' family per se and that she may be the only adult in her family. The parents, their actions, struggles, the guys at school, her falling in mutual love with the one person she knows she can trust outside of her family, her love for cooking, everything is quite realistic and a little depressing at times.

Most of the characters are nuanced and as the story progresses, their outbursts come naturally. Each one is given enough time and material to let their personalities come through. Their actions aren't glorified, but neither are they demonized. It just comes off as understandable. Rape is one thing I simply cannot stand and Lucy should have made a complaint to make the boy pay, but we have seen/heard of that course of inaction a lot of times in real life. Her father telling the story of a mutilated saint just came off as ignorant of reality, but also highlighted his upbringing and the guilt he felt for having a child at such a young age. After Roger Ebert's passing, there's only one critic that I trust. He hasn't reviewed this movie, but I fail to understand the disdain and vitriol spewed against this charming coming of age tale by most of the other self-anointed 'critics'. This isn't a path-breaking tale, but it doesn't mean it doesn't have its own appeal.

6.5/10

I came across this movie on Netflix streaming movies. I took a chance and it is well worth the 90 minutes. Good story and good characters.

It is a discouraging movie in many ways but has a hopeful ending. Set and filmed in New Mexico, Sarah Bolger, doing a believable American teen accent, is 16-yr-old high school sophomore Lucy Diamond. Her dad, James Marsden as Chuck Diamond, has some sort of job that requires him to be away for weeks at a time. Her mom is Claire Danes as Lainee Diamond who had Sarah when she was only 17. Chuck is old-fashioned, he is the bread winner so Lainee doesn't tell him she has a telemarketing job when he is away.

The story is centered on Sarah, she is smart and responsible but her dad and mom probably should have never married. They don't have a loving relationship and mom strays when she meets what seems to be a nice guy. There is an interesting scene in a supermarket when one of those "nice guys" courting her is seen shopping with his two children and his wife.

So how does Sarah avoid that same trap? And how can she pursue her love of cooking, perhaps becoming a successful chef, and writing a bestselling cookbook? Her best friend since they were 6 is Thomas Mann as neighbor Kenny Crauder and after Sarah and Kenny start to realize maybe they are meant for much more together, and begin experimenting, Kenny gets sent away to live with his father.

The movie never pretends there are easy answers for all these issues. In the end mom finds yet another old boyfriend, she desperately needs to be "saved". In the process Sarah has to fend for herself again.

The movie ends with a sweet scene, with a Peter Fonda cameo as the owner of a popular local restaurant. After his son and Lainee run off to Mexico Sarah finds ingredients in the kitchen of the now closed for the evening restaurant and makes eggs in a red sauce. She serves herself and Fonda's character, they taste and compare notes as Sarah's voice-over indicates she will be OK, she has a plan.

This movie is a good and flowing one. The way Lucy's relationship with her parents is portrayed arises the interest of the spectators. She started off her journey with her longtime playmate, got drunk in a party, took some decisions out of the sheer heat of the moment, repented later but gained hope once again. She aspired to become a Chef and never did diverge too far away from that goal. This movie also portrays the midlife crisis that her mother had undergone and her questionable decisions to date and hook with other people. In the end, she focuses on a bright future considering that she is only sixteen and have a lot to achieve in the near future!

I thought the film largely lacked tension even at points where there should have been and that combined with the teen coming-of-age perspective made it seem more like a scatter brained after school special then a serious movie about a kid finding herself. They left so many things disconnected and made illogical jumps from one thing to the next. Sara Bolger definitely comes off as too mature for a 15 year old and that throws you some, especially as they are trying to make her character precocious and much smarter (and more mature) then her dimwitted poor choice making mother. And there's no logical consistency from one point in the story to the next. Why do they set up her initial relationship with her long time best friend as if its her destiny and then he's basically removed from the movie other than post cards and a phone call? Whats with that clever scene where they are feeding the dogs and the boy says he wants this to work long term and doesn't want to do anything to risk it like more sex and then BAM shes on him again and hes fine with it and he's gone shortly after? Felt wrong. And her jumping into a car with high school jock dude after all the speeches about being disgusted by people like that and NOT being interested in the least. And getting date raped and then being furious with his friend but getting over it and jumping into bed with him? None of that worked for me. (And why would the jock/prom king cliché character even be interested in her! What was so special about her? Had he made a bet? She wasn't particularly pretty or alluring). Her character wasn't ditzy or insecure enough to justify her actions. They made her into this righteous wise young person who says all the right things and really seems to get it but her actions were completely alien to her character. You can have her be a precocious kid. Just don't have her be the one person in the film that the audience thinks understands the difference between right and wrong (because that character foil is necessary so she can be the counterbalance to her stupid immature parents who make endless dumb decisions). And then we are supposed to believe that the mom was a nun until just recently even though the entire movie she acts like a desperate slut and THATS why Lucy has decided to run out and screw different guys? Because her mom told her she hadnt until recently and she doesn't want to end up like that? No... Doesn't work...

In the end the only message I got from this movie was parents can be dumb and immature and you can be smart and wise for your age but you should still have promiscuous sex with different people just so you don't end up regretting your relationship with your childhood best friend when you are older.

Oh and is her name a reference to the Beatles song? That bothered me the whole film...

I will say the sign I enjoyed the most (and the ONLY scene where I felt any worthwhile tension) was the well laid out dueling scenes where the mom runs into an confronts the man shes cheating with in the store with his family at the exact same time was Lucy's dad comes home unannounced and walks in on her having sex with a guy. The back and forth and increasing tension of both scenes worked well. Claire Danes was especially convincing emotionally during this scene. And we needed more of that kind of uncomfortable tension during the rest of the movie. The rape scene was much too easy to take and she just... gets over it after a while. What?! Are we supposed to assume in the end she going to go back to her original boyfriend once she is done exploring the world and getting with different guys? The movie needed to be more clear on that if so. They just leave that relationship out there. What they presented as destiny before no seems on hold or disconnected and you don't know what to think about it. All the post cards and calls but out she runs with other guys even though we are supposed to accept that shes a smart girl who makes better choices then her mom... And we are given no closure with the last boyfriend who we assume ran off after being attacked by her dad? and she doesn't seem effected by that. And the whole Mario thing creeped me out just slightly. Was he supposed to become a character in the movie? She dwelled on him a little too much for him to be just a chef on TV that inspires her.

In the end, I enjoyed Bolger's performance but I don't think the movie fit together well and it ran flat without enough tension where the things that were being depicted clearly needed tension to make the audience uncomfortable and challenged. The dynamic with the mostly absent dad is overwhelmed by the dynamic with the slutty dumb blonde mom because shes there more often until she abandons her in the end for an old flame. Its not really a coming of age film its more a "My crazy nonsensical family life" film where the actions don't make complete sense.

I was forced to watch for 90 minutes of a mother's and her daughter's scenes of unfaithfulness, and when near the end a little catastrophe happened, did I feel empathy for the protagonists? Not too much. I felt the movie was too middle classy to my taste. Apparently money, fresh ingredients and good looks help people easily out of their disillusions and life goes on. Maybe a broken neck or a gun fight would have made this piece more satisfactory, more tragedy, but in this manner.... just a soap opera where even dogs were just dogs.

As Cool as I Am (2013)

Do I feel the need to ever watch this movie again? No Did the actors have good chemistry? Yes Was the plot decent? Not entirely Execution decent? okay

This movie offers up some good examples (as far as fiction goes) of why some people should not have children until they are ready and how not experiencing things or experiencing too much can harm you.

I couldn't cheer for or against any of the main characters in this film. The situations that come up are very predictable and the way they are solved or left unresolved is annoying.

The opening scene had me excited for this film:

Lucy is swinging around on bars in a playground with her best friend Kenny while her voice-over plays.

"Everybody has two families. The stable family we pretend to have. Then there's the real people we are related to. My best friend Kenny says, "Stable families make boring children." And by stable families, I think he means the kind were mom and dad and kids stay in the same house all the time. And by boring he means not as cool as we are."

They stop swinging and start playfully talking. Then Lucy runs home and a montage plays up the cool family aspect. The Diamond family is different for several reasons: neither parent has living parents, they became parents very young, the dad only visits a few times a year, and her mother has a job, Mr. Diamond doesn't know about. None of this is particularly interesting but serves to create conflict later on.

The only thing I found funny in this comedy was Claire Danes in one scene. Her outrage at the grocery store was unbelievable. The character and her acting was hilarious in that setting. It was beyond stupid and ironic. James Marsden did decent considering he was mostly allowed to allude to saints throughout the movie. His overreactions could almost have been endearing if they weren't so violent. Kenny's mom despite the way she handled things, was one of the few people who did something that made sense and wasn't just an action done to feel something.

Sometimes not liking any of the characters in a movie can work. As Cool as I Am doesn't make that cut. There are so many things wrong with the characters yet these flaws don't captivate me to feel anything beyond annoyance at the experience. Lucy is a victim of her own making. I'm not even talking about the rape. She didn't want it and chose not to pursue charges. That was her right. It was smart of her to get an exam and opt for the HIV prevention drug. Then for so irrational reason, she starts dating the ex best friend of the guy who raped her, just because he flipped the guy off and invited her fishing. Not all rape victims, want to be victims, and deal in different ways. This just seemed so unrealistic and contrived.

Well at least she was smart enough to get birth control, after the first time she had sex with Kenny, who loves her (according to him), and use a condom other times. Safe sex can be good. This movie was not good. It was okay.

Lucy is a minor girl who lives with her mother Lainee and her father has left them because of the work that must take in order to maintain the house and his loved ones. He comes once a month to visit them or every time he has the opportunity. Lucy's neighbor, Kenny is a shy boy about her age and slowly Lucy's feelings for him becomes too magnify even for a girl like her. She is clumsy, making fast decision witch in fact takes years to accomplish, but for her a few seconds are enough. The relationship with her mother is very open, the two seems that are sisters or best friends and this brings even more freedom in Lucy's behavior. Her father Chuck is on the contrary more imposing with her or the boys witch her daughter had been related. Soon some arrogant peers from the high school will approach her and invite her at some party to take advantage of her immature mind. But this will also ruin the connection with Kenny, her family and another boy that she recently meet. Will she be able to restore order in her life?

I was curious about this movie particularly because of the name, I expected something more solid, more smarter. Similar like "Megan is missing" or "Trust", in "As cool as I am" we witness a silly girl making another things like an ordinary girl at the same age at her should do. The exception is that here we don't have the internet or the virtually chat between the characters and the action takes place in reality. Claire Danes looks gorgeous, James Marsden's time in the movie is too little and his talent can't be seen, and the movie becomes painful to watch at some point, doesn't bring nothing new and in the end you can put yourself the question: "Why should I care?"

Best bit seeing Sarah bolger humped in various positions, she is beautiful in this