Philadelphia Weekly

If you're seeking out this quiet coming-of-age story for Lauren Ambrose of HBO's Six Feet Under, you won't be disappointed by her very real portrayal of teenage Frankie Wheeler's summer of reckoning in Myrtle Beach. It's not that anything so exceptional happens in this movie--nobody gets raped, nobody develops a drug problem and nobody, for the most part, comes out--but if your adolescence was as uneventful and confusing as Frankie's, you'll know that's kind of the point. Frankie and her best friend Nicola (Jennifer Dundas Lowe) are used to things a certain way: Nicola drinks too much and acts like an ass, pushing overalls-clad Frankie deeper into sullen awkwardness. But when Frankie's brother Neil (Josh Pais) hires beautiful, sexually aggressive Josee (Joelle Carter) to wait tables at the family diner, Frankie gets a lesson in jealousy (Nicola's), love (Frankie's) and lust (everyone's for everyone else, it seems). The film is full of quiet summer sounds and well- selected tracks by Bree Sharp and Spider that punctuate the mood like the obnoxious summer crowd that moves in on Frankie's turf. At moments the action falters, and you can start to feel like you're the one stuck with a depressing family and no car in a southern beach town. But mostly you'll love this deeply observant, gentle, authentic film.

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