Flower

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Erica is a reckless, ruthless high school student. She blows dudes in order to black mail them, and she’s saving up the dough for some future project that’s obviously pretty important to her. She’s used to being called a slut, and worse, and mostly she rises above, and copes by drawing dicks and not caring. You might think of her of the problem child her family and maybe she was – until her almost-step-father brings home her future-step-brother Luke, who’s been an unknown quantity in rehab this whole time.

Anyway, Erica (Zoey Deutch) is fully prepared to hate Luke (Joey Morgan) with all her guts, but instead she sort of takes pity on, MV5BMTU3NjQwNDQzNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNDE3NTYwMjI@._V1_SX1777_CR0,0,1777,999_AL_and then awkwardly befriends, the guy. Their bonding is unorthodox, but what else do you expect from a movie in which Adam Scott is constantly referred to as “hot old guy” (he was born in 1973, fyi, if you’re trying to judge whether you should just slit your wrists right now or possibly way til the end of this review).

Flower is directed by Max Winkler, son of Henry Winkler. What drew him to the material, and how does he handle it?

Well he does one thing extremely right: he casts Zoey Deutch. I can’t think of many actresses who could handle Erica’s rebelliousness, her remorselessness and vulnerability. Deutch goes full tilt in a way that’s impressive. She sucks up all the attention and fills the screen like there’s a vacuum leading straight to her luminous face – her performance is so committed I could barely see around it. But looking back – this movie takes some unexpected, and perhaps unexplainable twists and turns. And to be honest, I guess I couldn’t really tell you what the whole point was. This movie is in theatres right now, in limited release. If you’ve seen it, we need to discuss. What the heck is the point?

16 thoughts on “Flower”

  9. floatinggold

    Consider my wrists slashed.

    For some reason I had to google it all, because I thought you meant Zooey Deschanel, and the picture you provided didn’t match. I had to re-read to see I misread.

    Zoey looks like a solid lead in the trailer, but I totally see your “What’s the point?” question.
    It’s probably just meant to be a random comedy. Is there any “heartwarming” message regarding the rehab guy becoming a part of the family?

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  12. Sean Chastain

    I’m kind of an idiot and definitely a misogynist, so I’ll leave a comment that’s sure to be edited by the feminist who runs this thing.

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  13. loveatfirstmovie

    Honestly, this movie had potential to be so much more but I feel like it just comes across as the movie that thinks its cool because it shows a lot of drawings of dicks… like yeah, do that… but there’s gotta be more than that, you know? I love Zoey Deutch and believe she needs to be in many more movies (fell in love with her in Everybody Wants Some), but… this movie just felt like it tried too hard to be irreverent, if that makes sense? Max Winkler has yet to make a movie I’ve enjoyed… he’s directed good TV though… maybe that’s his calling?

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