Slash - coming of age can be a very out there experience

Slash is an amiable coming-of-age movie that captures teenage confusion and alienation really convincingly.  Two disaffected teens, Neil and Julia, share a secret hobby – writing fan and slash fiction. For Neil this has been entirely private, Julia is immersed in the online world and when she discovers Neil’s writing, convinces him to join in as well.

The film has all the elements you want from this type of film – it’s fun and funny, takes it’s leads emotional confusion seriously without ever being indulgent or po-faced. And of course there is a loud mouthed, sarky best mate and comically unhelpful parents. Ok that’s not the most original thing to have in a coming-of-age drama, but I’m not complaining – sometimes things are near-mandatory in a genre for a reason! It has just the right amount of affection for sci-fi and fan fiction without undue reverence.  It feels like we’re laughing with the main characters rather than at them, but of course with the odd eye-roll for some pretentious extremes.  It also realises that online communities can be more important for a lot of people – teenagers and adults – without forgetting that there is still a real, offline life to be lived as well and one in which there can be real consequences.

There are really good central performances, particularly from Hannah Marks as Julia. If I had one criticism, it felt that Julia was occasionally relegated to Neil’s cheerleader by the script, which the performance and character development done by Marks didn’t deserve. It would have been really great if these characters could have been joint protagonists to a greater extent, rather than Julia being the foot on the accelerator for Neil’s story. But this is just a minor quibble to a very enjoyable witty and emotionally realistic film.