Flash (2016) By all means let's give writer-director Clay Liford some credit here.......
Instead of making the usual dead-in-the-water, navel-gazing indie film, Liford shines a light on an incredibly strange subculture, so bizarre and obscure that even the film festival cellphone auteurs never covered it......
I speak of a particular offshoot of fantasy-sci-fi fan-fiction writers........who grind out erotic stories depicting their favorite "Star Trek", "Harry Potter" or "Lord Of The Rings" characters in porn-worthy hookups......usually marathon same-sex bouts.........yikes.....
And yes, they've got their own adults only sites for posting their stories.......the highest honor they can receive, besides the admiration of their fellow fan-folk - a cease and desist order from a Hollywood studio......
Liford boldly goes....so to speak.....into a coming-of-age romance between two such creative and sexually conflicted fan-fictioneers......outcast high schoolers.
Their passion for crafting this strange erotic fiction draws them to each other, though they couldn't be any less alike......
Neil (Michael Johnston) lives in his own repressed shell, scribbling out gay-sex fantasies about his favorite intergalactic superhero. As fate would have it, a kindred creative spirit also goes to his school, the live wire Julia ( a superb Hannah Marks).........if not quite Neil's Dream Girl,, she's at least a Manic Pixie, a character she cosplays at Comic-Cons......
The film details the collision of this odd couple and the bumpy adolescent road they travel on the way to figuring out who exactly they are.....or hope to be.
I only wish I could say the film handles their story with knowing insight and sharp wit all the way through.......but not quite.
Marks lights up the screen every time she appears, but Johnston's character (which must have read well on paper) sucks the life out of the movie. All of Neil's angst and sexual uncertainty are internalized by Johnston........far from making him sympathetic, he seems like a whiny, non-responsive, pain in the ass........the kind of character who comes across much better in a novel, where an author's free to delve into the kid's deepest thoughts and fears. On film......uh uh......
The movie does stay true and honest to the coming together of these two dysfunctional young souls.........so don't expect the film to coddle you with a feel-good, teen rom-com Hollywood wrap-up....it's too smart for that.
But it'll leave you with a glimmer of hope, that these two fiercely creative people will soon write their own original stores.....and live their own original lives........(maybe together, who knows?) 2 & 1/2 stars (** 1/2) A more than interesting trek....with or without the stars.....
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