Surprisingly evocative of my own early love development years. Sweet but slooooow

Rating: 8/10 (23 August 2014)

This was certainly a "lovely" film. It is obvious that the writer/director cared about presenting something genuine and touching - rather than some plot driven smash-a-thon. I could relate to the themes. They were telegraphed so clearly, however, there were no real surprises. We could see each line and exchange and development coming from a mile away - and the movie took forever to get to each tiny step (it's 2 hours and 15 minutes).
It pains me a bit to say it, but the movie's glacial pace and repetitive nature slowed it down a bit too much. And how it would linger over each small movement in the two kids' relationship, and then go back over it and over it and over it - made it feel repetitive. I suspect women might find this more of a match to their style of fantasizing? If the movie wasn't so earnest, and "real" in some very authentic ways, I would have found it annoyingly tedious. Didn't quite happen, though. I was surprised to find myself flashing back to some very sweet moments from my own teen-aged love affairs. It was sweetly evocative in that way, which I appreciated. I can't remember seeing a movie depicting the development of love with "youths" turning into adults so authentically and with so much meaning for me. Usually romances are either rom-coms, or formula set-ups, or twinky vampire book treatments. Or set pieces from current hip culture. This was none of those. This was nice. Sloooow, but nice.
Although the very predictable (and extremely limited and overly simple) plot points failed to "move" me particularly - it was interesting but no big drama - I was generally liking all the characters. I was glad for the characters finding romance, and I enjoyed reliving a bit of my romantic development in a fresh way no other movie had managed to do. But getting all weeping with the deaths and near-deaths and reuniting and all - nope. It was just life, and no cause for any tear-jerking hullabaloo.