Movie Review - Laggies

Laggies (2014)

Starring Keira Knightley, Chloë Grace Moretz, Sam Rockwell, Mark Webber, Jeff Garlin, Ellie Kemper, Gretchen Mol, and Kaitlin Dever

Directed by Lynn Shelton

***This film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime***

Laggies started out so promisingly with laughs coming quite rapidly in the film's first few scenes.  However, as the tale of aimless twenty-eight year-old Megan (Keira Knightley) progressed, its humor began to cease which is a real shame because I think Knightley and Chloë Grace Moretz are giving some of their best performances in this flick.

Megan is college educated and could be a therapist should she so choose, but instead she spends her days twirling a sign outside her dad's tax prep business.  She's been with boyfriend Anthony (Mark Webber) since high school, but her general malaise is a bit off-putting to even him.  While attending her best friend's wedding, Megan runs out in a bit of a panic and heads to a local liquor store where she meets Annika (Moretz) who asks Megan to buy liquor for her and her high school friends.  Megan obliges and ends up spending the night hanging out with the teenagers, having a blast in the process as she remembers the "good old days."  When Anthony pleads with her a few days later to attend a conference that will help better herself, Megan instead meets up with Annika for the week and end up spending a lot of time together with trying to better one another's ho hum lives.

Keira Knightley is really coming into her own as of late and Laggies is no exception.  Here she completely embodies the lackadaisical Megan with her acting feeling wholly natural and completely unforced.  Moretz is also quite good, although her character is admittedly a little less developed and haw much less room to grow.  Together, the two have a nice rapport and movie certainly is aided by the two actresses.

Unfortunately, the film itself isn't quite as humorous as it would like you to think it is.  It also doesn't help that the premise itself isn't quite as believable as it would like you to think it could be either.  Would the father (Sam Rockwell) of Annika really be okay with a woman more than ten years her senior hanging out with his daughter?  And while Knightley sells the prospect of a romantic relationship with Rockwell's character, when the film begins to travel down that road it just seems a bit silly.  So, despite some really solid performances, Laggies doesn't quite work.

The RyMickey Rating:  C