A May-December Rotten Romance
Review and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters even though I’ll have to sacrifice seeing such wonders as Cocaine Bear (Elizabeth Banks).
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge it; activate
that same button or use the “esc” keyboard key to return to normal size.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: Palm Trees and Power Lines takes place somewhere in Southern CA, seemingly in an L.A. suburb, where 17-year-old Lea (Lily McInerny) is spending a boring summer, hanging around with a small group of friends, seemingly sharing everything with BFF Amber (Quinn Frankel), having meaningless casual sex with Jared (Timothy Taratchia), finding little to interact about with busy real estate-agent-Mom Sandra (Gretchen Mol), perturbed both that her father now has a new family in Arizona with the second wife not interested in Dad having any contact with Lea and that Mom seems to have a steady flow of useless men who aren’t doing either one of them any good. (It’s not clear if these teens are high school seniors finished with that phase of their lives but with seemingly nothing to move on to in the fall or if they’re just killing time until their upcoming senior years). One night in a diner with her group, Lea and Amber suddenly find themselves stuck with the check (hasn’t even arrived yet) as their 3 crappy guy friends leave, sticking them with the bill. Lea and Amber try to make a run for it, the cook catches them outside, but he’s physically persuaded by Tom (Jonathan Tucker), who’d observed the whole situation from another booth, to let them go. As Lea walks home Tom follows her in his truck, finally convinces her to let him give her a ride home, puts his number into her phone, tells her he’s a 34-year-old handyman, leaves it to her to call him. Lea’s intrigued, hints to Amber she’s met a guy who fascinates her, but lies that he’s a student at some other nearby school. Eventually, Lea calls Tom, they start hanging out together, he offers an emotional connection that he too is estranged from his father (as we’ll learn later, it’s hard to know what to believe of what he says), then she agrees to go to his place, which turns out to be a motel room (he claims he’s between situations at present), with their romance interrupted by banging on the door leading to Tom going to the second floor to chase away a man (a drunken boyfriend?) hassling a woman who lives up there, but it’s not clear to Lea about what all’s going during that night.
Soon, during a day at the beach, Lea’s friend Emma (Lily Collias) sees her and Tom who introduces himself to her, Emma tells Amber about it, Lea beseeches Amber to stay quiet, even as Tom tells Lea “You’re mine.” At another diner, Tom goes outside to take a phone call as the waitress asks Lea if she needs help getting away because she’s seen Tom there with other girls before. Lea ignores it but outside asks Tom what's up; he goes in, has strong words with the waitres, who apologizes. Later, with her teen gang, Jared cracks a joke about Lea being with a “geriatric,” with Lea angry at Amber, then runs off to Tom’s motel. He wants her to forget everyone else, go with him to a hotel somewhere in the area (Sandra rarely knows where her daughter is, doesn’t press her about it, willing to believe the lies she’s always with Amber). While there he shifts their usual sex play into oral for him (we’re always clear what’s going on with Lea, but nothing too graphic is ever shown), then tells her they need money so she needs to have sex with a man who’ll be there soon. ⇒She’s horrified but goes along with it, then runs away while the guy’s in the shower, but Tom catches her; they go to a restaurant, she slips out the back, goes to a gas station, calls Amber to get her. Back home, Lea spends more time with Mom (and Amber), but wants to contact Tom, finds his phone disconnected, returns to the motel, convinces his female friend there to call him; Lea gets on the phone, wants to know why Tom hasn’t contacted her, says she still cares for him, film ends there.⇐
So What? While some listings call Palm Trees and Power Lines a 2022 film because it debuted that year at the Sundance Film Festival (won the U.S. Dramatic Competition Directing award), for me it’s from 2023 because that’s when it had its domestic debut in a small number of theaters on March 3 of this year, simultaneously available for streaming on several platforms. The meaning of this title eludes me (unless it alludes to this situation about avoiding catastrophes), although it seems to just refer to the story’s location in Southern CA (filming takes place there as well) where there are plenty of those items everywhere, so is it intended to note the L.A.-San Diego area is a place where sexual abusers like Tom are so frequent that you just have to allude to the locale to imply this sort of thing that happens to Lea is ubiquitous in the supposedly-family-environs of Disneyland, Sea World, etc. Whatever that case may be, what struck me the hardest about this story is that ⇒Lea still has unrequited-feelings for Tom, she seems ready to go back to him despite the disgusting situation he created for her,⇐ reminding me of the equally-horrid-conclusion of the stage version of A Streetcar Named Desire (Tennessee Williams, 1947) where Stella goes back to atrocious-husband Stanley despite how he’s raped her sister, Blanche, sending her into a state of further-mental-delusion (whereas the otherwise-marvelous-film-adaptation [Elia Kazan, 1951], bowing to the self-imposed-industry-“standards” of the time, shows Stella refusing to have anything more to do with this tyrant).
Why Lea would ever want to see Tom again—let alone being upset with him for not contacting her after she ran away from their hotel—just shows (to me, at least) how empty her life has become, that this is the only future she sees for herself knowing full well now what to expect from Tom if she continues being with him. In my opinion, that desperation on her part seems almost as tragic as what happens to Lea at the hotel that awful night. Despite the sordid situations depicted here, the acting’s solid throughout with McInerny playing Lea as a girl very sure of herself yet easily duped as she gives herself over to Tom so willingly while Tucker presents Tom as an ambiguous combination of working hard to be decent (even though he knows full well he has no business pursuing someone half his age, a teenager at that) yet hiding a true self who has no qualms about lies, manipulation, self-serving actions. You can easily sense early on Tom’s trouble for Lea, despite his attempts to convince her otherwise, yet he’s so good at manifesting his decent-public-persona that you can’t help but hope maybe there’s more sincerity to him than we fear; yet, as we get to know him better all we can try to envision is that she sees what’s really happening here, gets away as soon as possible.
Bottom Line Final Comments: Yes, as I said up front, I’m still mostly avoiding theaters—not that I think I’m missing much regarding the likes of Shazam! Fury of the Gods (David F. Sandberg), Scream VI (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin), or Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (Peyton Reed), although Creed III (Michael B. Jordan) is likely worthwhile for bargain-matinee-prices, but I’m saturated with this whole Rocky-inspired-boxing-narrative for now, will wait to see when I’m ready to watch 2 guys pound each other into (near?) death again—plus last weekend also featured other options, some of which were time well-spent, such as a hearty St. Patrick’s Day dinner last Friday (if you’re ever near Harry’s Hofbrau in San Leandro, CA, make your way there to satisfy any hunger-pangs because I got enough in that one meal to carry over to 2 more), attending a powerful play, Cambodian Rock Band (Lauren Yee, 2018) at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre (active music, searing look at the trauma caused by the Khmer Rouge regime decades ago), and re-watching Oscar’s 2023 Best Picture, Everything Everywhere All at Once (Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, 2022; review in our April 14, 2022 posting) on cable TV’s Showtime (also on their streaming service as well as still being in a lot of theaters) where it’s just as confusing-but-fascinating as ever (you can also find Elvis [Baz Luhrmann, 2022; review in our July 7, 2022 posting] on HBO Max or for cheap rental at several sites, rightfully nominated for 8 Oscars yet, sadly, winner of none; I also re-watched via Netflix disc the magnificent Best Picture Oscar winner Midnight Cowboy [John Schlesinger, 1969], the only Best Picture with an X rating [now re-rated down to an R as mores change over time]), others were more miserable as my Golden State Warriors basketballers seemed again incapable of winning a game on the road (despite being NBA champs last year, yikes!), were getting perilously-close to falling out of the playoffs picture entirely, although this week’s better as they finally won 2 away from home (beating Houston and Dallas, as my new home [since 1984] beat aspects of my old home [since 1947, minus a couple of years in NYC in the early 1970s]), so Palm Trees and Power Lines was all I had time to fit in, although it came close to being the only choice I’d have cared to make as well (maybe next week I’ll find 2 options to share with you; we’ll see how that plays out).
Given the very limited theatrical release of Palm Trees … I have no figures on its box-office take, but I can say it’s a hit with the CCAC as the Rotten Tomatoes reviews are at 90% positive while the Metacritic average score is a most-encouraging (for them, the usually-hesitant) 73%. If you’ve ever known anyone like Lea or Tom, this film may be somewhat difficult to watch, but I encourage you to give it a try if you feel that you can, as it doesn’t attempt to gloss over its disturbing aspects. Streaming’s probably your best option to find it for a $4.99 rental on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, other platforms. I’ll leave you to ponder whether it interests you or not while listening to my standard review-closure-item of a Musical Metaphor, this time being Joni Mitchell’s “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio” (on her 1972 For the Roses album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oozk LBjDkIc, even as a few lines don’t fit (“I’m a country station, I’m a little bit corny” despite Lea saying early on she’s not a fan of country music; “I know you don’t like weak women, you get bored so quick,” yet that’s exactly what Tom wants so he can manipulate them) while many of the lyrics are appropriate (“And you don’t like strong women ‘cause they’re hip to your tricks”) especially as we learn Lea’s still ready to give herself to this jerk (“Dial in the number who’s bound to love you”), implying the choice is up to him (“If there’s no good reception for me then tune me out”). Overall, this song’s more upbeat and hopeful than I see in any immediate future for Lea; however, her situation’s indicative of how so many people take the easy road toward something sometimes sparkling but mostly's dangerous, even when they know deep down there must be better options somewhere else.
SHORT TAKES
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
Ben Affleck reveals the demands Michael Jordan had before he could direct his new film, Air; and (2) Writers Guild proposes allowing AI in scriptwriting as long as humans get credit.
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