Gia Coppola boasts an impressive film pedigree. The 27-year-old director is the granddaughter of filmmaking extraordinaire Francis Ford Coppola, and niece of esteemed screenwriter-director Sofia Coppola. Her family has claimed 8 wins and 24 nominations at the Academy Awards.
The illustrious Coppola family tree has sprouted another branch, with Gia establishing herself as a talented and perceptive filmmaker with her debut feature Palo Alto.
Like many angsty teen flicks, Palo Alto opens in a parking lot, where loose cannon Fred (Nat Wolff) and sweet slacker Teddy (Jack Kilmer) smoke dope and talk shit. Their lives intersect with April (Emma Roberts), a beautiful yet shy soccer player and their insecure classmate Emily (Zoe Levins), who is popular with the boys for all of the wrong reasons.
Coppola offers a stylish and atmospheric portrait of the years we must spend in purgatory between childhood and adulthood. Autumn Durald’s cinematography bathes the film in a dreamlike haze, accompanied by a mellow synth pop soundtrack from Blood Orange’s Devonté Hynes.
The film’s dazed and confused Californian teenagers are assembled from a book of short stories penned by James Franco. Renaissance man Franco also plays the role of Mr B, a ‘hands on’ soccer coach with an unsettling affection for his younger student April.
While Franco is convincing as the film’s smiling assassin, he is outshone by the spectacular young cast. Emma Roberts is a vision onscreen and manages to anchor the meandering narrative with her empathetic performance. Jack Kilmer (son of Val, in his acting debut) masks Teddy’s sensitivity behind his wild mop of blonde hair, while his counterpart Nat Wolff rattles through Coppola’s sharp dialogue with scene-stealing fervour.
Amusing cameos from Chris Messina, Talia Shire and Val Kilmer – in a comic turn as April’s headband-wearing, stoner stepfather – support the ensemble of authentically drawn youngsters.
Like their cinematic predecessors in The Outsiders, Kids, and The Virgin Suicides, the teens of Palo Alto are jacked up on booze and cigarettes, and torn between anger and disaffection. They lead privileged lives, and with this privilege comes very little responsibility.
Palo Alto is certainly not breaking any ground in the bildungsroman genre, but its vignettes of adolescent life are still beautiful to behold.
Sat 14 Jun, 8:30 PM, Event Cinemas
Sun 15 Jun, 5:15 PM, Dendy Opera Quays. Tickets
