A portrait of the increasingly desperate attempts of a teenage Manhattan girl to find love and kinship, in a world that never reciprocates.A portrait of the increasingly desperate attempts of a teenage Manhattan girl to find love and kinship, in a world that never reciprocates.A portrait of the increasingly desperate attempts of a teenage Manhattan girl to find love and kinship, in a world that never reciprocates.
- Awards
- 1 nomination
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaAnna Paquin was originally cast as Cat Storm. She dropped out of the lead role in favor of X-Men.
- Quotes
Cat Storm: [narrating] Just like every year, I prayed that this year was gonna be different. You know, crawl out from under your shadow, get my Mom off my back, and just stop being the freak that nobody wanted. I mean, it was pathetic. I was starting eleventh grade, and I never even *Frenched* a guy. Guys like William Sellers didn't think that I was worth the pennies in his loafers. If he knew that I existed. Why would he? Just *look* at him. All I wanted was to impress him...
[approaches target]
Cat Storm: To get his attention.
[the wind blows up her skirt]
Cat Storm: Not exactly what I had in mind.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Beyond Clueless (2014)
- SoundtracksNICE GIRL
Written & performed by Spottiswoode
Cat (Dominique Swain) doesn't know who she is, which ironically doesn't keep her from not liking who she is. And in the people around her -- family and friends, adults and peers -- she finds varying amounts of belonging, rejection, hope, and disillusionment. In other words, Cat is just 17 in a way that should be familiar to us.
That's one of the strengths of Christina Wayne's quiet, mature film is the feeling of verite. I've never been young and rich in NYC (or near-rich, or formerly-rich, or trying-to-keep-up- with-the-rich) but Wayne's portrait seems so detailed it makes me really curious to know if she has been. Far from being "Just another spoiled rich kids film - _Kids_ meets _Metropolitan_!" Wayne shows us Cat trying to "fit in" and a diverse number of reasons -- from financial to social to emotional to behavioral -- why you can cast out of this insular, cannibalistic sub-culture.
Another strength is Wayne's direction and writing. The film is well-constructed with strong characters, with images and (Yeah, I'll say it ...) motifs that appear once and then quietly reappear in different contexts. And all throughout Wayne shows a really nice eye for pictures.
Plus she's got really good people doing good work. I mean, everyone is in this movie: Swain, Renfro, Phillips, Zehetner, Chabert and Barton (before they had to try to be smoking hot), Scott Thompson of _Kids in the Hall_ fame. She even gets Melanie Griffith to do a walk-on.
One thing the film has going against it is the marketing. Looking at the trailer and the film poster, it's clear that Lions Gate or whoever didn't know how to pitch this film. It seems like they wanted it to be naughtier or rowdier or ... brighter than it is. But it's not a melodrama. There are no simple heroes and villains, no moralizing on right and wrong, no suspense- ridden plot. It's the type of character-based, even, sad, dramatic storytelling that seems to go down better in Canada that here in the States.
I like it, though. If you've got a quiet morning and some time, it deserves a try.
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Details
Box office
- Budget
- $3,300,000 (estimated)
- Runtime1 hour 34 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1