By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Trevor Anderson
Starring: Dominic Lippa | Lacey Oake | Matthew Rankin | Shannon Blanchet | Vaughan Murrae
Year: 2024
Running time: 89
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15209902/reference/
Jeff says: “It’s 1987, and Robin (Vaughan Murrae) is the new kid, an American recently settled into their new home in Edmonton, Alberta. It’s their first day of high school, and they join a gym class in progress, where a hapless teacher is trying to demonstrate the proper application of a condom using a banana as a prop. It doesn’t go well, and the kids are suitably grossed out. You couldn’t find a more pitch perfect evocation of 1980s teen comedies. Toss in a couple of other zany plot points (you can only play saxophone in the school band; the local community theater’s ersatz knock-off of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR), and BEFORE I CHANGE MY MIND plays, on the one hand, as a heartfelt, utterly faithful tribute to John Hughes and his contemporaries. On the other, it offers a nicely developed coming-of-age story. Although Robin is non-binary, and so, also, might other characters be, the writers, Trevor Anderson and Fish Griwkosky (Anderson also directed), don’t call attention to how these kids’ identify. No pronouns are used. Nobody comes out. Instead, they center the movie, consciously, on these kids’ journey towards figuring themselves out. Gender identities are accepted as just part of the background. Murrae is a joy to watch, at once awkward and ethereal. Out in the woods, the kids congregate at a home-built play structure. It’s shaped like a rocket ship, a potent symbol of lives taking off. 4 cats.”