Exploding Girl’ goes … pffffffttt

Film festival movies are different from mainstream films in a number of ways. Whether we’re talking about plot, characterization, style or what have you, festival films are usually the opposite of what Hollywood has trained us to expect.

They may have little or no noticeable plot. Characters may be more anti than hero, as opposed to antihero. Style could be slo-mo, out of focus, framed so that we can see only the corners of characters’ chins … and so on.

But even the most offbeat of festival films must have at least one of several things. They must have characters about whom we care. OR those characters must live in worlds we find intriguing. OR those characters and those worlds must be portrayed in WAYS we find intriguing. And so on.

A week ago I went to see a little festival film at the Magic Lantern . It’s titled “The Exploding Girl.” And while I ended up liking the movie, I had a difficult time getting there.

The film stars Zoe Kazan (yes, of those Kazans ) as Ivy, a young woman home for the summer from university. With her is Al (Mark Rendall), her best friend - “Oh, from maybe eighth grade” - who ends up crashing on a couch at Ivy’s mother’s house. Here is the story that writer-director Bradley Rust Gray follows: Ivy comes home, she mopes around a lot, she tries to call her boyfriend, she and Al go to a party, he gets stoned but she gets bored, she tries to call her boyfriend, she teaches kids how to act, she eats lunch in the park with Al, she finally hears from her boyfriend, she has a seizure, Al tells her that he likes her, her boyfriend breaks up with her on the phone, she can’t take a bath because her mom is working late, she tells her boyfriend that they can’t be “friends,” she mopes a bit, she heads back to university, and she holds hands with Al.

For much of its running time, “The Exploding Girl” bored me. I didn’t like the characters (who seemed to take themselves waaaay too seriously). I didn’t like their world. And I didn’t like Gray’s style, which seemed to be in serious need of some caffeine. I ended up liking the film, mostly because I liked Kazan, but I never got the title. Still don’t.

I’ve read the work of critics who love the film, who wax on and on about Ivy’s explosion of emotions. Uh … what? Yeah, she has a seizure. One seizure. Which even while it hovers over the entire film like a dark cloud is hardly a major scene (even if it is a major plot point). But if a slightly tart tone on the phone or a slow groping of two thumbs are signs of emotional explosions, then a cherry bomb (ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb) is a small nuclear weapon. So are we meant to be stuck by irony?

Well, I liked the movie. Didn’t love it. In fact, “The Exploding Girl” is exactly the kind of film that make people mistrust critics. When they drool all over such a small little feature, people think … what the hell? And, at least in this case, they’re right.

I’d have changed things, beginning with the title. I’d have titled it “The Imploding Girl.” That, at least would have been factual.