Electrick Children

Electrick Children is a 2012 film produced by Jessica Caldwell, Richard Neustadter and Live Wire Films, distributed by Phase 4 Films, written and directed by Rebecca Thomas and starring Julia Garner and Rory Culkin.

Plot

The plot concerns 15-year-old Rachel McKnight, a member of a fundamentalist Mormon community in Utah, who, listening to a cassette recorder for the first time, hears a song by an obscure rock band on a blue cassette. Her brother, Mr. Will, takes it from her, stating that it is to be used only for God's purposes. When she finds herself to be pregnant, she is convinced that she has conceived miraculously, like the Virgin Mary, through the medium of the cassette. After being questioned by her parents, her brother is blamed for impregnating her, and is asked to leave the community, while Rachel is told she will be married the next day. Rather than undergo a shotgun marriage arranged by her father Paul, she escapes to Las Vegas, along with Mr. Will, who is sleeping in the bed of the family's pickup truck. In Las Vegas she falls in with a group of skaters who live together and play in a band, after being drawn to one of the boys who wears a shirt with a cassette on it. She becomes romantically involved with Clyde, one of the skaters. One night he offers to marry her, and says that together they can look for the man on the tape, and that she can leave him when they find him. When a trip to Clyde's parents' house goes awry, Mr. Will is arrested, and Rachel flees. Remembering one of her mother's bedtime stories, she impulsively follows a red Mustang and discovers the man who recorded the tape, who is, in fact, her biological father. Finally, she decides to return to her community. Mr. Will is bailed out of jail by Rachel's father, who is looking for her. Together, he and Mr. Will drive out to the community, though they admit they have not formed a plan about what to do when they arrive. They discover Clyde, whose van has broken down on the highway, and proceed to the community. As she is about to be wed, her biological father, Mr. Will, and Clyde pull up in front of the church in the red Mustang and rescue her. Mr. Will returns to the community, with a recording that Rachel has made on the blue cassette. After playing the recording for his mother, she hugs him and leaves the room. Rachel's voice-over states that she firmly believes that God has fathered her child. Clyde and Rachel are living in a tent by the beach and hold hands as they walk through the waves. As the song on the blue cassette plays, the ocean laps the shore.

Cast

• Julia Garner as Rachel McKnight
• Rory Culkin as Clyde
• Liam Aiken as Mr. Will
• Bill Sage as Tim
• Cynthia Watros as Gay Lynn
• Billy Zane as Paul McKnight

Production

Director Rebecca Thomas was raised as a Mormon. She first researched fundamentalist Mormonism for a documentary, and was later inspired by Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew.^[2]

Release

The film was first screened in Europe at the Berlin International Film Festival on 10 February 2012,^[3] in the US at the South by Southwest Film Festival on 15 March 2012,^[4] and in South America at the Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema in April, 2012^[5] It went on general release on March 8, 2013.^[3]

Reception

The film received an 86% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with seventeen "fresh" reviews out of a total of twenty.^[6] It got a metascore of 60 on Metacritic, based on nine reviews—two positive and seven mixed.^[7] Stephen Holden of The New York Times said the film was "neither comedy nor drama nor satire but a surreal mélange infused with magical realism." He criticised its lack of narrative continuity but said "the movie's underlying sweetness leaves a residual glow."^[8] Catherine Shoard of The Guardian said the film was "so deftly done it's three parts enchantment to one part irritation." She called Garner's performance "magnetic", and said that McKnight's community was convincingly portrayed.^[9] Lelie Felperin of Variety called it "a sweet slice of indie quirk."^[10]

Awards and nominations

Electrick Children gained its director, Rebecca Thomas—at that time a fourth-year student at Columbia University School of the Arts Film School—a nomination for the "Someone to Watch" award at the 2012 Independent Spirit Awards.^[11][12] It won her the FIPRESCI Award at the 2012 International Festival of Independent Cinema Off Plus Camera in Kraków, Poland.^[13]

References

External links

• Official website
• Electrick Children at the Internet Movie Database