You and Me Forever - Teenage Strife

Although by no means a bad film, You and Me Forever didn't really engage me.  The actors give good performances and a lot of the direction is excellent, energetic and capturing the feel of the teenager’s world. But I had real issues with the central character which meant I was never really absorbed by her life.

Laura is annoyingly passive, apart from when clashing with her parents, never showing any individuality or taking control over her destiny.  It’s not that it isn't credible that would thoughtlessly abandon a close friend for someone who seems more glamourous and cool but teenagers can be so absolute in their actions and emotions because of the internal, unshakeable logic and world view that drives them. They might act in an illogical, incomprehensible way, but it is driven by a belief that this is totally right. Laura’s internal logic does not come through enough to make her choices understandable and so she becomes a frustrating presence rather than a sympathetic one.  Her passivity and poor choices feel like a projection of adult incomprehension rather than genuine teenage acting out.  Perhaps that was the intention, but it didn't work for me.  Or perhaps I’m just getting too old and have more tolerance for adults who aren't able to take control of their lives (see Oh Boy)  than teenagers who don’t take control.

The film does have its positives.  Along with the performances, the film gives a good sense of the feeling of being stuck in a small town and therefore away from the action where life is surely happening without them.   In many of the scenes it also captures well the sense of testing out the boundaries of the world (the girls drinking and generally being loud on trains feeling pretty familiar – see most teenagers on buses/street corners etc!) and a sense of exhilaration from being two people against the world.  Laura’s new friend, though more extreme, feels more convincing, if only because I did get a sense of her world view.  With a central character more of a protagonist who made choices for some apparent reason, rather than no apparent drive of her own, this could have been a truly convincing snap shot of small town teenage life.