MYST Post #3: Hick

Hick

Earlier today, I overheard a conversation about the movie Hick. I looked it up and saw that it featured many of my favorite actors - Blake Lively, Rory Caulkin, Chloe Grace Moretz - and the storyline sounded pretty similar to one of my favorite movies, Electrick Children. I decided that I had to watch it. Going into it, I had high expectations. Unfortunately, I was sorely disappointed.

One of the first scenes of the movie is of the main character Luli (played by Moretz) at her 13th birthday party, which is hosted by her alcoholic mother in a bar. Nobody there is Luli's age - everyone attending looks to be at least 30. Luli's father gives her a revolver. A few scenes later, Luli is home alone and decides that she can't stand living with her alcoholic parents anymore. She packs a bag of clothes, her gun, her drawing book, and a wad of cash stolen from her mother, and starts hitchhiking her way to Las Vegas. A guy named Eddie (played by Eddie Redmayne) picks her up. Soon after, she gets scared of him and asks him to drop her off. She catches another ride with a young woman named Glenda (Blake Lively), who takes Luli to her house. To the surprise of both Glenda and Luli, Eddie is there, working for Glenda's husband, Lloyd. Eddie then proceeds to kidnap Luli, rape her, and keep her hostage in a motel room. A few days after Luli was taken, she wakes up tied to the bed, with Glenda watching her. Glenda confesses that she used to date Eddie and he did the same thing to her. Glenda is helping untie Luli when Eddie walks in and shoots and kills Glenda. Luli takes the gun and shoots and kills Eddie. The motel owner, Beau, tells Luli that he can make sure she'll never get in trouble for any of that, and that if she needs a new home, his sister in Los Angeles has always wanted a daughter. At the end of the movie, after realizing that she doesn't want to go home to her mother, Luli takes a bus to Los Angeles to live with Beau's sister.

One of the main things I didn't like about the film is that in the beginning, the plot is extremely slow. Then all of a sudden, everything bad that could happen happens, and then the movie ends, and the audience is left shocked and confused. There are many unanswered questions at the end of the movie: what happened to Luli's father? The only information we get is Luli's mother's flippant "your father never returned". What happens after Luli gets on the bus - does she make it to LA? Does Beau's sister welcome her into her home or does she reject her just like Luli's real mother did? Does Luli ever get in any trouble with the police about the murders? There are so many things thrown at you at the end that you barely have time to process what is happening. 

Unfortunately, the plot wasn't the only thing I disliked about the film. For one thing, the casting was terrible. It was hard to take blonde bombshell Blake Lively seriously as a white trash gold digger after she starred as a rich, spoiled, New York teen in teen drama Gossip Girl for six years. I disagree with the way 15-year-old Chloe Moretz was sexualized in this movie. Eddie Redmayne totally flopped in his role of a psycho stalker/kidnapper/rapist. And Alec Baldwin? Where did he even come from? And how many donuts did he have to eat before getting this role?

A fat Alec Baldwin comforting Chloe Moretz after she kills her rapist.

The shots and angles in this movie were extremely boring. Rarely did the camera stray from a medium shot. I can only recall one scene in which a unique angle was used (a dutch/oblique angle when Eddie sees Luli for the first time after she gets out of his car). Being that there was basically just one type of shot, it was hard to decipher scenes and take meaning from them. High angles mean that that person has power - so who is in the position of power here? The object can't be that important if there is no close up on it - right? 

All round, this movie was a flop. So bad, in fact, that when I looked it up on Rotten Tomatoes after viewing, I saw that critics gave it 5% and viewers gave it 37%. Basically, the movie is unrealistic and paints a picture of an extreme worst case scenario - it's as if my mother herself directed it as to push the idea of running away and hitchhiking out of my head. I give it one star out of five.