Fourteen-year-old Dani (Reese Witherspoon) has a crush on the boy next door, Cort (Jason London). He (correctly) thinks Dani is too young for him and sets his eyes on her older sister, Maureen (Emily Warfield), sparking jealousy between them.
Honestly, this movie is pretty stupid. Maureen states that she's going to college in like two weeks so all Dani has to do is wait and she'll have Cort's undivided attention with zero fuss. But that's not apparently the point of the movie. Anything more involves a major spoiler.
Cort feels icky about a three-year age gap between him and Dani, which plays well to modern viewers but is not apparently a sentiment shared by the camera, which delights in lingering over her pubescent body. It's not quite as egregious as Fear but it's close.
If you grew up with this movie or it resonated with you for whatever reason, you probably still like it. It's not nearly as condescending as some coming-of-age stories I've seen. The only casting note is that Sam Waterston feels like the wrong choice to play Dani's dad. He doesn't project authority to me. Everybody else is fine.
It's currently streaming on Kanopy.
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