In Lynn Shelton’s amiable new comedy, “Laggies,”
Keira Knightley plays Megan, a 28-year-old woman
still stubbornly clinging to adolescence. Aimless in both her personal and
professional life, Megan may technically be grown up, but she’s not truly an
adult. Despite possessing an advanced degree in counseling, she earns a
paycheck twirling a sign for her father’s accounting business. She’s hanging
out with the same group of friends she’s had since high school, but feeling
increasingly disconnected from them as they all start to get married and have
babies. She doesn’t even realize how unfulfilled she is until her high school
sweetheart, Anthony (Mark Webber, “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World”) proposes
marriage during her friend’s wedding, and she freaks, impulsively fleeing both
the reception and the life of responsibility he’s offering.
After hightailing it, Megan runs into 16-year-old Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz) and her group
of friends outside a liquor store, where they’re on the hunt for a booze
hookup. Suddenly, Megan’s found a group she feels comfortable with, and before
long she finds herself crashing on Annika’s bedroom floor. She decides to stick
around, hiding out in her new friend’s home, at first without the knowledge of
Annika’s father, Craig, and then (once he’s been won over by his new
houseguest’s charms) with his reluctant permission. Though Craig is divorced
and heartbroken after being abandoned by his ex-wife, he maintains an acerbic
sense of humor — mainly because he’s played by Sam Rockwell, and that should
tell you everything you need to know about where his relationship with Megan is
headed. Megan gives herself a week to lay low and figure things out, telling
Anthony that she’s attending a career-counseling seminar out of town.
“Laggies” understands the
comforting appeal of regressing back into adolescence, fitting squarely in the
well-worn tradition of arrested development comedy. And it doesn’t really break
any new ground. Shelton (working from a script by young-adult author and
first-time screenwriter Andrea Seigel) opts for an
unobtrusive directing style, giving the material a slightly more realistic feel
than it might otherwise have had, and while the plot is predictable and too
often content to play it safe, it’s so gosh-darn likeable that those things
start to feel like part of its charm. Though she’s smoothed out the edges of
her traditionally shaggy style, Shelton maintains her gift for getting great
work out of her actors. Knightley makes for a warm, relatable heroine, and it’s
easy to find yourself rooting for her happiness. She shares a nice, big-sister
sort of chemistry with Moretz and generates
convincingly romantic sparks with Rockwell, who brings his typical sly charisma
to the role. The scenes he shares with Knightley represent the film at its
best, and it’s not a surprise — has there ever been a film that isn’t improved
immeasurably by the sheer presence of Sam Rockwell?
This article appears in Nov 12-18, 2014.
