Film File - LOL
Written and directed by Lisa Azuelos, 'LOL' is a coming-of-age comedy based on her 2008 French hit, 'Laughing Out Loud'. In a world increasingly connected by Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and iTunes, Lola (Miley Cyrus) and her friends navigate the peer pressures of high school romance and friendship, while at the same time dealing with their often overbearing and technologically bewildered parents. Lola's high school inner circle includes Kyle (Douglas Booth), a best friend whom she realises could be her big love after a bad breakup with his best friend, Chad (George Finn). The rest of Lola's circle includes her two best friends Janice (Lina Esco) and Emily (Ashley Hinshaw), Wen (Adam Sevani), a nerd that Emily secretly hooks up with; Lloyd (Tanz Watson), a member of their gang, and Ashley (Ashley Greene), the sexy girl who has set her sights on Kyle, much to Lola's dismay. Alan (Thomas Jane) is the ex-husband of Anne (Demi Moore) and Lola's father - a man who can't seem to let go of his ex-wife. James (Jay Hernandez) is the good-natured cop dating Anne, who is able to offer a little perspective on her teenage daughter, while Mr Ross (Austin Nichols) is the heart-throb teacher whom all the girls have a crush on. Gran (Marlo Thomas) portrays Anne's sophisticated mother whose relaxed demeanour allows her to be the easy-going bystander when it comes to watching her daughter raise children of her own. Gina Gershon and Fisher Stevens round out the cast as Roman and Kathy, Anne's closest friends and confidantes. Lisa Azuelos wrote and directed the story's first incarnation, 'Laughing Out Loud', starring Sophie Marceau, having seen the actress in an earlier French film, 'The Boom', which was basically 'The Breakfast Club' of her generation and a movie that young French people identified with. Azuelos was inspired to write the story when her daughter was throwing her first party at their home and didn't want her mother to be seen, forcing her to stay behind closed doors listening to the songs that she listened to when she was 16 - a vision of her own youth that instantly forced her to write. Azuelos drew her principal characters from subjects close to her heart, scripting a mother-daughter relationship much like her own. 'LOL' does conform as a 'chick flick' set in a high school where the main topics range from bad grades to bad boys, cute teachers and cliques, circles of trust and the dangers of betrayals. Lola is the centre around which the plot evolves - mostly concerned with her dramatic love life and pursuit of Kyle, a romantic connection that doesn't quite spark the way she wants. Queue much girl talk about boys and how they really think, or do they think about anything else but the one thing? Other romantic asides are taken with Lola's friend Emily's crush on maths teacher Mr Ross, a scenario delivering the only real laughs in the film. The other relationship minefield concerns Lola's mother and father - a marriage that refuses to die - and the persistent cop who adds to the complicated threesome. As an entertaining movie, 'LOL' is a pretty flat experiment - but one that will definitely appeal to its intended market of adolescent girls. Not quite as syrupy as other teen scene flicks, and even enlivened with some cunning asides on the mixed benefits of modern IT communication, 'LOL' showcases a steadily maturing Cyrus that only her fans will applaud.