Say When [Laggies] *** (2014, Keira Knightley, Chloë Grace Moretz, Sam Rockwell – Movie Review

Keira Knightley boldly goes across the Atlantic as Megan, an American woman in some kind of life crisis, who absurdly panics when her doting high-school boyfriend Anthony (Mark Webber) suddenly proposes. She escapes for a week to get her act together and hides out in the home of her new friend, 16-year-old high-school girl Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz), who lives with her world-weary, single, lawyer dad (Sam Rockwell).

This is a very weird, slightly disturbing story, with odd undertones, but that proves a good thing in these capable hands. It’s good to see Knightley trying to shake off her posh English gel image and extend her range, and she makes a pretty fair job of it too. Is it only because we know she’s English that she doesn’t seem quite right for the role? Would a real American have been better in the part? Maybe yes and maybe no to those questions.

Moretz is exactly the right fit for her part, and it’s nice to see her without a gun or streams of C-words. She’s good. And Knightley and Moretz share good odd couple screen chemistry. But the film doesn’t turn out to be about her, which it looks as though it might be. Rockwell is perfect as the dad, the right ideal actor to make such an appealing oddball character believable and his actions and thoughts credible.

Writer Andrea Seigel and director Lynn Shelton’s quirky, offbeat and surprising film is highly likeable and extremely watchable. Till near the end, you’ve no real idea of what’s coming next. And that’s always a good thing. And, like it main actors, it has charm too.

The unmemorable new title is at least as bad as the old one, Laggies.

Knightley took over from Anne Hathaway, who was busy with Interstellar (2014).

© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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