I've seen this film described as Mumblecore, I think it is a useful starting point to describe the film, though I think it has marked differences. Both this movie and Mumblecore movies in general concern relationships between young white heterosexual folks with relatively privileged upbringings, who are undergoing changes in their lives, or are stuck in the Doldrums hoping for the wind of change. The thing is that Mumblecore often has a warts and all approach, and a comic aspect. So you might get a boy and a girl having a conversation about the internet porn they watch. The difference with The Exploding Girl is that, largely the characters in this movie are shown in a positive light, employing a lot of discretion, and there's no attempt to tickle your funny bone, plus the movie often actually looks really good (as opposed to the hand-held shakiness of Mumblecore).The two main characters are Ivy and Al. Ivy is studying at Ithaca, but on a break, whilst Al is a friend of many years who stays with her over the period. Al is studying evolutionary biology at college and talks about Goldschmitt's theory of hopeful monsters, which I thought was a really good metaphor for the stage of life Al and Ivy are at, i.e. going from being really good at being kids to learning how to be really good as adults. A hopeful monster is a missing link in evolution between different more steady lifeforms.Ivy has seizures and is on medication so she has to be careful about drinking, which makes it difficult to engage with a lot of the party life and experimentation that happens at college. Al is sympathetic with this and so they spend time hanging together. Both of them have different romantic interests but seem to do have the potential to do really well together. They're both great young people, which is the thing I liked about the movie, that it showed how great they were. I liked the writing, little things like Al recording his own songs on a tape recorder, with rather overstated lyrics! I felt kinda envious at the end because I wished when I was that age I could have shown a girl the things I was proud about (and vice versa). At one point Al went to see a Zed and Two Noughts (described as an English film called Zoo) with some friends. I watched that alone at about the same age.They're both pretty gentle and thoughtful. The main reason I wanted to write a comment about the film is that it made me feel like being a bit more gentle and thoughtful. Corollary to that was that I went out and bought a friend a doughnut. It had jam and cream in it, when I came back he said he didn't like cream.

Zoe Kazan's performance in The Exploding Girl was nuanced and heartfelt, but unfortunately diluted by her extensive screen time. The film spent ENTIRELY too much time lingering on Ivy staring contemplatively into the distance (an indulgence that plagues many indie films). For me, this was the only major flaw, and I felt that the movie overcame it. The cinematography was otherwise really beautiful, looking at the world in ways we don't usually think to look at it. The characters were real people, if not fully developed. They provided an honest look into the lives of modern young adults, whose relationships are sustained but also often trivialized by technology, like Ivy's ever-present cell phone.This film is subtle, sincere and complex, and I'd recommend it if you're willing to sit through slow-moving scenes and lengthy shots of self-consciously thoughtful Ivy. If nothing else, the last minute of the film is a miraculous moment that absolves all its prior sins.

The star of 'The Exploding Girl' is Zoe Kazan, granddaughter of Elia Kazan, the legendary director. It helps that Elia Kazan was Zoe's grandfather, as I'm sure it's helped her career. Nonetheless, I understand she's a pretty good actor irregardless of her famous surname. But here, in 'The Exploding Girl' she has virtually nothing to do.'The Exploding Girl' is up for a Spirit Award in the 'John Cassavetes Award' category (features made for under a budget of $500,000). It's similar to another Spirit Award nominee, 'Tiny Furniture', as they are both about a young college-aged female back at home from school, who have both platonic and romantic relationships with young men. Kazan plays Ivy who gets a call from her friend Al, whose parents have just rented his room out, and finds himself with nowhere to stay. The circumstances of this 'mixup' by Al's parents are unclear and the specious explanation provided by the film's writer/director, Bradley Rust Gray, appears nothing more than a weak plot device to place Ivy and Al in close proximity to one another.Al is a sensitive guy but I'm unable to remember much about him. Oh yes, he takes Ivy to a rooftop where pigeons are being bred and there are some nice shots of the platonic couple gazing skyward at a flock of birds (pigeons?) flying in the sky. The rest of the Exploding Girl plot concerns Ivy being dumped by her boyfriend, Greg, who we never see on screen. In fact, the entire Ivy-Greg relationship is depicted through a series of cell phone conversations! One shallow internet poster has asserted that American films focus on plot and Indie films are more like foreign ones—i.e., character driven. In this poster's mind, 'art' films don't have to have much of a plot and the mere presentation of 'sensitive' characters is enough to award accolades to such films as 'The Exploding Girl'. As a fledging screenwriter myself, I can say without hesitation that 'plot' is the most difficult aspect of a screenplay to develop. You can have all the great characters in the world but if you don't have a dynamic, original plot, your film might get off the ground, but it will never soar! I realized that 'The Exploding Girl' was going to be slow-moving after watching the first ten minutes. However, sometimes there are slow-moving films which reward you with a surprising twist at the end. Not so with 'The Exploding Girl'. It's all rather predictable stuff when we discover Ivy and Al holding hands as the screen goes blank and the credits then begin to roll.The film's scenarist appears to be a nice guy and nothing in this film is crude or objectionable. Nonetheless, there simply aren't enough unique plot reversals to prevent us from throwing this film into the proverbial indie trash bin. Perhaps with more life experiences, Mr. Gray may come up with a more dynamic story. Certainly, 'The Exploding Girl' does have a few arresting visual moments. But as long as another weary 'lovesick girl bounces back after being dumped by insensitive boyfriend' plot is thrown our way, this film (and other indies films like it) might be defined in terms of what 'Seinfeld' is supposed to be really about: nothing!

I am always grateful to see films like "The Exploding Girl" that rely on an economy of cinematic technique to tell a story that is about very human topics in way that makes the viewer engage. It is eminently visual, as a move should be. Listening to the audio track would leave you with nothing grasp. The lack of explication only intensified the sense of youthful tragedy for things that go unsaid and opportunities missed. There's always a problem for some people about small, personal films like this one: they aren't big, flashy or hair-raising. What this film zeroed in on is the pain and uncertainty of youth, and especially of young love. To that end, it was poignant and dead on.The only real problem I have to make about this film is that the filmmakers got too carried away with street-level camera shots that were willing to allow anything and anybody that intervened between the actors to stay in the shot, which resulted in a couple of overlong shots of blurred-out passersby or their body parts to obscure the characters. Okay, I get it that Ivy was just one more passenger on the train; but the indeterminate dark mass of fellow passenger blocking the shot for 15 or 20 seconds was just plain clunky.