Laggies

What a pleasant surprise Laggies turned out to be. A 2014 film directed by indie whiz Lynn Shelton stars Keira Knightley as a woman in her twenties who can't quite make the leap to adulthood. She ends up in a bizarre friendship with a teenager (Chloe Grace Moretz) who helps her find her footing in life.

That sounds awful, I know, but it plays much better. First of all, Knightley has never been better. It was disconcerting to hear her in an American accent--I don't think I've heard that before. I so identify with her Britishness that when I chose the film on Netflix I assumed it was a British film. Her character, Megan, is completely adrift. She has a Master's degree but does nothing but twirl a sign for her father's tax business. She is starting to feel alienated from her core group of friends, which is a problem since her long-time boyfriend (Mark Webber) is part of them.

Her best friend (Ellie Kemper) gets married, and the night of wedding she ends up at a grocery store. Moretz is one of a group that asks her to buy alcohol for them. Something about them touches the adolescent in Knightley, and she ends up hanging out with them. After Webber proposes, she freaks out and hides in Moretz' house, where she meets her single dad (Sam Rockwell).

Now, the impending romance between Knightley and Rockwell is telegraphed a mile ahead, but it's the only thing about the film I could see coming. The two women form a bond, a kind of older sister-younger sister thing. Knightley accompanies Moretz to see her estranged mother (Gretchen Mol) and dispenses romantic advice. She pretends to be Moretz' mother at a school meeting, and then later takes the blame for a road accident. In all, Knightley is kind of the fairy godmother for Moretz that any girl would like to have.

But the film is about the fairy godmother, not Moretz. We see a very clear-eyed version of a kind of slacker that isn't addressed often this honestly in films. Shelton and writer Andrea Siegel have fleshed out a very interesting and very divided character, one who wants to cling to the past while at the same time realizing it's an anchor around her.

Sure, some of this seems far-fetched--would a dad really let an adult woman hang out with his teenage daughter? And would an adult woman really go to a high school prom? But Laggies is mostly intelligent, enough to gloss over these incredulous moments. I recommend it highly.