Witty, sexy and wickedly intelligent, seventeen-year-old Caroline Wexler (Kat Dennings) quickly realizes she has little in common with the hicks that populate her new high school. She has an affair with the one person she connects with: her handsome young teacher, Mr. Anderson (Josh Lucas).
Caroline’s extracurricular affair takes a turn for the worse when she realizes Mr. Anderson is deeply dysfunctional and tortured by his mysterious past. When she breaks off the affair in favor of her classmate, Mr. Anderson does everything to sabotage the budding romance. Caroline’s chaotic life mirrors the hysteria of the small town as rumors of a serial killer start to swirl. In the middle of a high school party, that’s turned into a full-blown riot, Caroline’s life changes forever.
Featuring a hit indie soundtrack in this mash-up of the bizarre and the beautiful, Daydream Nation is a coming-of-age story for the 21st century. Taking his cue from a title borrowed from a Sonic Youth album, Goldbach manages — with the aid of Jon Joffin’s moodily evocative lensing — to give this, his debut effort as a feature helmer, the look and feel of a dream that is nonetheless focused and specific. It’s a first-person fantasia, narrated with equal measures of acerbity and anxiety by Caroline, who periodically pauses to offer an anecdote (such as one describing the serial killer’s first killing) tinged with magical realism.
Dennings effortlessly affects the air of a wise-beyond-her-years cynic — specifically, a Canadian cynic — whenever she lets loose with a snarky observation (“There’s more incest in this town than in an Atom Egoyan film!”). But she’s every bit as deft at conveying the emotional vulnerability and fretful confusion just below Caroline’s saucy, prickly surface.
Lucas strikes the right balance of neediness and creepiness, and gets a surprisingly big laugh during a throwaway scene that pays a backhanded homage to, of all things, “Taxi Driver.” Thompson is aptly engaging, as is Andie MacDowell as his understandably concerned mom. Whittall makes the most of a thinly written role, dryly cracking wise in a manner that indicates Caroline is very much her father’s daughter.
Shot mainly on location in Fort Langley, British Columbia, “Daydream Nation” benefits from superior production values. Of particular note is a soundtrack of smartly chosen pop and alt-rock tunes, including Emily Haines’ achingly wistful cover of Neil Young’s “Expecting to Fly.” Pic’s final image is nothing short of wrenchingly beautiful.
Daydream Nation
Directed by: Michael Goldbach
Starring: Kat Dennings, Reece Thompson, Josh Lucas, Andie MacDowell, Natasha Calis, Rachel Blanchard, Katie Boland, Natasha Calis, Laura Jacobs
Screenplay by: Michael Goldbach
Production Design by: Renee Read
Cinematography by: Jon Joffin
Film Editing by: Jamie Alain
Costume Design by: Ken Shapkin
Music by: Ohad Benchetrit
MPAA Rating: R for drug and alcohol use, sexual content, language and some violent images – all involving teens.
Studio: Anchor Bay Films
Release Date: May 6, 2011
Hits: 92
