With her first (and only) fully scripted feature length film, director Lynn Shelton took audiences on a journey which captures the timeless experience of one’s life being influx and having to rediscovery who you are.
Megan (Keira Knightly) finds herself at a crossroads in life. While working for her father (Jeff Garlin) and doing next to nothing with her college degree, Megan feels stuck. Meanwhile, her oldest friend, Allison (Ellie Kemper), is planning her wedding. Megan is constantly confronted by where she isn’t in life by her high school friends who are getting married and starting families. While at Allison’s wedding, Megan’s high school sweetheart Anthony (Mark Webber) proposes, prompting her to leave for some air where she then stumbles upon her father cheating on her mother.
Trying to wrap her mind around the events of the evening, she soon meets Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz) and her friends. The group of teenagers is trying to get someone to buy alcohol for them. Remembering her own days of rebellion, Megan agrees. The group then invites Megan to join them, and she tags along. Returning home, Anthony suggests he and Megan elope to avoid a big wedding, which Megan initially agrees to. Then, under the guise of a week-long career advice seminar, Megan leaves their home, taking Annika up on a previously offered favor, and stays with the teen and her single father Craig (Sam Rockwell). Both Annika and Megan embark on a journey of self-discovery, healing, and acceptance of where the life has led them.
Shelton always had a keen eye for the humanness of her characters. You understand their relationships, their drives, and their insecurities. Megan sees her entire friendship moving on with their lives, hitting the expected milestones that have been fed to people since childhood. You go to college, you get a degree, you get a good job. You meet someone, you marry, you have children. And yet, Megan seems ambivalent to it all. She seems to move through the motions as others attempt to drag her into adulthood.
While she lamely limps through life, she begins to discover that feeling stuck is far more universal. Her best friend Allison appears happy, but there is so much discontent which she hurls at Allison. Craig appears to be hunkering down and just forging ahead even though he never addresses his own struggles of raising a teenager as a single parent. Even Anthony, while well-meaning and kind, appears to be clinging onto a relationship that feels comfortable. Meanwhile, he proposes to her at Allison’s wedding, maybe hoping having others around will convince Megan to say “yes” – whether or not he consciously knows he’s doing that.
On the flip side, Annika wants two things: to be an adult and to be loved. After her mother (Gretchen Mol) left, Annika clearly feels a sense of abandonment though I doubt she would admit it. When Megan takes Annika to see her mother, the moment is anything but the warm and emotional reunion one would hope it would be. Instead, it is very much two strangers with shared history. Moreover, Annika sees adulthood as freedom, but through her friendship with Megan, she grows to understand adults are simply scared teenagers who can vote, pay taxes, and can rent cars.
What Shelton accomplished with Laggies is demonstrating the totality of personhood. You can be approaching your thirties, feeling directionless and stuck while simultaneously being your same precocious teenage self ready to take the world by storm. You can be a girl coming into her own as she nears adulthood and also be the same wounded kid who just needs to feel loved. Shelton received her BFA in acting, and through her directing her education shines brightly.
Knightley and Moretz are especially spectacular in this film, giving performances and going to depths we have not seen from them before. Rockwell’s turn as middle aged dad is a delightful change of pace from his usual roles; he’s somehow both charming and curmudgeonly. Shelton gives space for all of her actors to give nuanced performances which greatly enhance the story and the work we see from their fellow actors.
Weber is particularly great as Anthony. If lesser hands, Anthony would either be two dimensionally obnoxious. Instead, we get to feel for him. You see that Anthony and Megan are no longer right for each other, but you also understand what kept them together for so long. Weber makes what others would make two dimensional into a dynamic performance which only gives great emotional breadth to the film. Likewise, Kaitlyn Dever steals every scene she is in as Misty, Annika’s friend. She nails comedic takes while, at times, serving as the audience surrogate throughout the film.
Laggies was Shelton’s fifth feature length film. Harkening back to her feature film debut, We Go Way Back, Shelton delved into the coming-of-age genre blending both teenage angst with late 20’s existential crises. We see parallels drawn between two young women, one still in adolescence, as they grapple with the expectations of others, and learn to live in their own ephemeral truths. Until the next chapter of life takes them through another journey of self-discovery.
On a personal note, Lynn Shelton is my favorite filmmaker. Laggies is an easy recommendation as it combines the familiar comfort of a coming-of-age film with Shelton’s interest and care in people. Shelton always had a way with people and the relationships between them. She once remarked:
“I have always been interested in character relationships that feel incongruent on paper — bonds or dynamics that from the outside might appear strange or improbable. But through these odd pairings, there is humanity and transformation. It’s people who grapple with their sense of identity as one loses the ability to touch and the other gains an ability to heal. I love the idea of two souls connecting across the barrier of whatever social norms might be standing in their way.”
It is a connection she was not only able to make between her characters but between her storytelling and her audience. Laggies turned 10 this year, and it a staple of Shelton’s film and television legacy I hope more audiences continue to discover.