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With: Summer Phoenix, Grace Van Dien, Kyle Gallner, Jesse Garcia, Reina Hardesty, Sierra Nicole Rose, Indiana Affleck, Gabriel Monroe Eckert
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Written by: Scott Organ, based on his play
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Directed by: Amy Redford
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MPAA Rating: NR
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Running Time: 85
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Date: 08/04/2023
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Catfish Tank
By Jeffrey M. Anderson
This small-world drama centers on just a few characters and captures a deep emotional pull for the first two-thirds, but the rest feels somehow truncated, serving the plot more than the characters.
Teen Anna (Grace Van Dien) has been chatting online with Eric (Kyle Gallner), whom she met in a poetry forum. On her 17th birthday, he shows up at her door, with a beautiful Emily Dickinson volume as a gift. It turns out he lied about his age — he's 28 — but they find they have a deep personal connection anyway. They wind up sleeping together.
After giddy texting and phone conversations, they decide to tell Anna's mom, Beth (Summer Phoenix) and her stepdad Tim (Jesse Garcia), about their relationship. But when Beth lays eyes on Eric, she freezes. A secret past that she thought she put behind her has emerged once again.
Adapted by Scott Organ from his own play The Thing with Feathers (the title is from a famous Dickinson poem), the blandly-titled What Comes Around gets much of its power from its complex mother-daughter relationship. Both Van Dien and Phoenix (sister of River and Joaquin) give nuanced performances that build a shared history and relationship. The movie takes time to suggest a troubled past for both of them, which is now stabilized. Gallner is also fine, generating palpable passion with Van Dien.
But when it comes to tackling issues of age and consent and responsibility, the movie seems cagey, like it doesn't quite know where to land. Then, to steer itself toward some kind of conclusion it makes two frustrating choices. Without giving too much away, Anna decides to do something and Beth decides not to do something, neither of which makes much logical sense. It gives the characters short-shrift, and makes the ending feel forced. (The movie also resorts to a creaky plot contrivance used in every bad spy movie ever made.)
Running only 85 minutes, perhaps What Comes Around should have taken a bit more time to stretch out and find its way.
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