The film was great for soft porn because that's exactly what it was. Those who thought it "sacrilegious" (at the Sundance Festival) should probably stick to romantic comedies and those who thought the film was original should probably watch more French cinema.
You can sometimes overcome the soft porn classification with a rich storyline but this film doesn't have that. It has been made many times before—only better. The story: Protagonist, Daniela, is a girl raised in a religious Evangelical environment but wants to have sex with anything warm-blooded and human; girl finally gets a boyfriend; girl then finds a girlfriend too; girl suddenly wants to be baptized; boy finds out about same-sex encounters; boy leaves girl because boy is religious and ashamed.
Daniela spends most of her time in this movie looking for sex and resisting her Evangelical surroundings. Her boyfriend finds out about the same-sex relationship because she spends much of her time blogging about it whenever she gets a chance. He tells her mother about it and dumps Daniela, thus also causing her to part ways with her mother. Young & Wild shifts from curious promiscuity, to sexual acts, to punishment (kicked out of school, of course), then adaptation (the boyfriend her mother accepts), to eventual sex with the boyfriend, and then to a contextual red herring that detracts from any promise of a clear message: The same-sex relationship.
I didn't see that the film added anything different in terms of methodology or content, and it lacked a clear focus, starting with an implied struggle over theism, which ends quickly once we learn that the main character is not an atheist but only "afraid" to believe in God. This theme of fear, like many others, never resurfaces. We never learn how she copes with the dissociation from her family and church and never see the post-climactic dynamics between Daniela and her ex-boyfriend, or Daniela and her family.
There were many opportunities here to do something interesting with the blogging aspect of the story (privacy and the naiveté of a young blogger), and lots could have been done to explore Daniela's mysterious and unrealized decision to be baptized.
Young & Wild appears to be an indecisive agglomeration of three separate themes that the director should have narrowed down or conjoined in a more coherent manner: Soft Lolita porn, religious sexual dichotomy and bisexuality.
You can sometimes overcome the soft porn classification with a rich storyline but this film doesn't have that. It has been made many times before—only better. The story: Protagonist, Daniela, is a girl raised in a religious Evangelical environment but wants to have sex with anything warm-blooded and human; girl finally gets a boyfriend; girl then finds a girlfriend too; girl suddenly wants to be baptized; boy finds out about same-sex encounters; boy leaves girl because boy is religious and ashamed.
Daniela spends most of her time in this movie looking for sex and resisting her Evangelical surroundings. Her boyfriend finds out about the same-sex relationship because she spends much of her time blogging about it whenever she gets a chance. He tells her mother about it and dumps Daniela, thus also causing her to part ways with her mother. Young & Wild shifts from curious promiscuity, to sexual acts, to punishment (kicked out of school, of course), then adaptation (the boyfriend her mother accepts), to eventual sex with the boyfriend, and then to a contextual red herring that detracts from any promise of a clear message: The same-sex relationship.
I didn't see that the film added anything different in terms of methodology or content, and it lacked a clear focus, starting with an implied struggle over theism, which ends quickly once we learn that the main character is not an atheist but only "afraid" to believe in God. This theme of fear, like many others, never resurfaces. We never learn how she copes with the dissociation from her family and church and never see the post-climactic dynamics between Daniela and her ex-boyfriend, or Daniela and her family.
There were many opportunities here to do something interesting with the blogging aspect of the story (privacy and the naiveté of a young blogger), and lots could have been done to explore Daniela's mysterious and unrealized decision to be baptized.
Young & Wild appears to be an indecisive agglomeration of three separate themes that the director should have narrowed down or conjoined in a more coherent manner: Soft Lolita porn, religious sexual dichotomy and bisexuality.