the ultimate chick flick scene

I always thought a film festival would open with an ultimate art house film with exquisite cinematography, impressive dialogue and actors that can act.
Well, that was not the case for the opening night of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival at the Arlington Theatre, featuring the film: Flying Lessons. Directed by Gideon Raff, the film is about a girl named Sophie (played by Kate Mara) who escaped to Los Angeles from her high schools years in Santa Ynez. She runs out of money and decides to go back home to obtain more money from her superficial mother. Turns out the mother has no money after her husband (Sophie's dad) commits suicide. Sophie reconnects with her high school sweetheart and her best friend, she also decides to take on a job to earn some money. The job is babysitting an older man who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer disease.

Sounds super depressing doesn't it? The problem is, the script was awful, so awful the sad story was quite funny and cheesy. The actors were alright, they could act, but nothing special. Perhaps I should blame the script for the decent acting. The only wonderful aspect of this film was the cinematography. The way the film captured the marvelous landscape of Santa Ynez wine country reminded me landscape paintings. The opening of the film was filmed in an interesting, but good way. Sophie is dancing in club at 6 am, but only single body parts are filmed at a time. The camera filming her ear, then arm, moving to the calf, then her neck, then to her hand, and on to her foot. I also like that scene because although Sophie was dancing, it was not filmed in a provocative, slutty manner.

But seriously, this film was so awfully sad, it was a joke. Here is the icing on the cake. It lays with the ending scene. Sophie has decided it is time to escape home once more, but try New York this time. The camera is on her face as she lights up a cigarette at the Greyhound Bus Station. The camera then pans upward to a birds eye view and then behind her- exhibiting her back and a bus she is watching. The bus is letting passengers off, the camera then zooms into the logo on the bus. Then the engine begins to rev and the bus begins to pull away. Lo and behold, Sophies' high school fucking sweetheart is standing behind the stupid bus. End of movie. What a joke! The ultimate chick flick scene, and it was soooo obvious that the scene was going to end with the revealing of the sweetheart. That kind of shit pisses me off.

I was quite surprised the Santa Barbara International Film Festival opened the 11 day event with Flying Lessons. The film can be summed up by a quote from a lovely man who was entering the Gala following the film: "I feel sad because it was such a bad film".