I don't like to admit it but I think I secretly like watching these almost girly coming of age movies. I can't watch them with Wife or in company (she has a horrible habit of laughing/smiling at me if I tear up in sentimental parts) but I always find them good filler for when I have to kill a couple of hours at work and the YouTube videos aren't quite working.
This one was about a guy at that point in life when he has to decide whether he is going to settle for the simple life and stay in middle America enjoying the simplicity of small town life or if he is going to challenge himself and attempt to go to college and be somebody.
The movie starts with him explaining to a college form what makes him special and he decides to write about the relationship he just broke up from. The kid looks like he is a minute away from doing something sleazy, so I'll agree with the girl that dumped him that he looked suspicious, but in reality, he is kind of a good guy. He explains how he is trying to help his best friend get a "lady" and they go cruising, he pushes his friend and the girl he is interested on a canoe and then waits patiently in the car with the girl's friend. I don't see any shenanigans, still he was dumped. The girl moves on fairly quickly, so maybe she had other plans. Anyways, he seems to have a bit of a drinking problem, he always has a flask with alcohol and seems to be always drunk.
In the next scene, a "nerdy" or "good" girl finds him passed out in some random yard and they start talking. He finds that he likes her, but somehow he's not supposed to, even his dopey friend doesn't think this is a good enough girl for him to be associating with. He finds that this is really the girl of his dreams, slowly giving him the strength to confront her mother and find out about his father. He helps her too, she too has a mother that demands too much of her and he gives her the strength to tell her she is going off to some university somewhere.
His father ends up being a loser in the worst way a drunk can be. He invites him to come over, but when he gets there he doesn't really want to spend time with him. The kid sees himself in his father and starts pushing the girl away immediately, he doesn't want to poison her with his evil ways since he reckons he is his father. A bunch of drama ensues, but eventually he has another encounter with him mom and she ensures him that he is nothing like his father, his father thinks only of himself, but you are the most considerate person I have ever known she tells him. This speech and the thought of losing the good girl I think inspires him to ultimately get his shit together and write a coherent enough college entrance paper so that in the final scene he is reuniting with the good girl coming out of one of her university buildings.
The movie was good and quick. It showed what it needed to and not much more. I enjoyed it, and maybe a tear or two were shed, in a good way.
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