'Laggies' has its coming-of-age charms
Laggies presents an intermittently believable portrait of female arrested development.
After all the movies we've seen about masculine failures to launch — Judd Apatow has made a career of this — it's refreshing to see a story that focuses instead on immature women.
But what begins with promise goes astray in Laggies (**½ out of four; rated R; opens Friday in select cities), much like the lead character herself.
While there are some appealing improvisational moments, too many scripted events are alternately implausible and neatly predictable.
Anchored by a winsome performance by Keira Knightley as Megan, a 28-year-old directionless college graduate, the story could have taken more chances and sidestepped romantic comedy cuteness.
The role of an aimless daddy's girl who no longer fits in with her high school friends seems tailor-made for Knightley. The actress' playful nature, loose limbs and slightly wicked smile nicely match Megan's flightiness.
Her 10-year relationship with high school sweetheart Anthony (Mark Webber), takes a turn when he proposes.
Megan is at the wedding of her uptight pal Allison (Ellie Kemper) when she bolts midreception. Muttering something about an errand, she drives off.
Going nowhere in particular — much as she is in her life — Megan stops at a convenience store where teenage Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz) and a few underage friends approach her to buy them booze. The next thing she knows she's joining them for drinks.
From that rather unlikely turn of events come a host of others.
Lying to Anthony that she's going to a career seminar, she asks Annika if she can temporarily bunk at the suburban home the girl shares with her single dad, Craig (Sam Rockwell). Megan lies to Annika and Craig that she needs a place to stay while waiting to move into a new apartment. Craig, a divorce lawyer, questions her motives. But because this is at heart a romantic comedy, he doesn't probe much. Besides, he's attracted to the adorable Megan.
Knightley is terrific in this slacker role, playing a breezy, sometimes thoughtless, character who feels related to the musician in last year's Begin Again and the lost soul in 2012's Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.
Moretz is charming, forging an easy chemistry with Knightley, while Rockwell is good-humored and slightly offbeat.
Director Lynn Shelton is working from a formulaic script by Andrea Seigel. Shelton has written more involving, intricate and nuanced films, such as 2011's Your Sister's Sister, and Laggies is the first film Shelton has directed that she didn't pen herself. It could have benefited from her writing expertise.
The intriguing concept of a comfortably inert young woman is undermined by a few too many grand gestures and contrivances.
Some of the best scenes are between Annika and Megan. The irresponsible older pal becomes a maternal surrogate for the motherless Annika. Megan's connection with the lonely Craig is less convincing. It's clear that romance will blossom from the moment they meet, not due to their chemistry, but because movie conventions dictate it.
Megan is more comfortable around 16-year-old Annika than her peers. She goes shopping for prom wear, hangs out at teen parties, relishes high school sleepovers and even feels a kinship with Annika's poky pet turtle. Her maturation is sluggish, even stalled, but full of reflection.
If only the movie had explored this aspect more, and not evolved into a rom-com about trading in a safe, longtime boyfriend for an older, wiser one. A film about a nearly 30-year-old woman confounded by her adult identity is much more compelling than the story of a woman defined by the men around her.
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