An adult Conrad Stevens is still haunted by an incident from his first love. He (Tye Sheridan) is 16 when he first meets Grace Turner (Kaitlyn Dever). She tells him that he will love her when he already does. He joins his best friends Tim and Hunter to prank the quiet boring neighborhood. One of the pranks set off a chase by Grace's older brother Eric. It ends badly and Conrad struggles with guilt as he comforts a heart-broken Grace.
The teen sex is unnecessarily voyeuristic. Add to it the dark subject matter, it comes off with an awkward tone which would be better served with as little suggested sex as possible. As for the incident, I buy into it but I expected him to call an ambulance afterwards. There isn't much that they could do at the scene anyways. Did he go to bed right after? It's not the vote that is the fork in the road. It's whatever he did or did not do when he got home. That scene is missing. I love his mother's speech at the end. I would probably cut out the scene at the Turner doorstep after that. After the mother's speech, the movie has dropped the mic and it needed to wrap up quickly. I do like the dark tones but it could do more with Tim and Hunter. This is intriguing if somewhat conflicted.
The teen sex is unnecessarily voyeuristic. Add to it the dark subject matter, it comes off with an awkward tone which would be better served with as little suggested sex as possible. As for the incident, I buy into it but I expected him to call an ambulance afterwards. There isn't much that they could do at the scene anyways. Did he go to bed right after? It's not the vote that is the fork in the road. It's whatever he did or did not do when he got home. That scene is missing. I love his mother's speech at the end. I would probably cut out the scene at the Turner doorstep after that. After the mother's speech, the movie has dropped the mic and it needed to wrap up quickly. I do like the dark tones but it could do more with Tim and Hunter. This is intriguing if somewhat conflicted.