Mark Reviews Movies: FIRST LOVE (2022)

First Love, Vertical Entertainment

Follow on Facebook | Follow on Twitter | Become a Patron

Review by Mark Dujsik | June 16, 2022

Two love stories play out in First Love. One is the tale suggested by the title, which involves a couple of teenagers who instantly form a deep romantic connection. The other involves the parents of one of those teens, who have been through that part of their own love story but now find themselves in a situation filled with real, everyday challenges.

Writer/director A.J. Edwards clearly connects these two stories, by way of their entangled relationships and through the back-and-forth narrative. On a foundational level, though, they couldn't be more different, especially in terms of complexity and which one receives the more significant weight.

In case it isn't apparent from the basic description, the parents' story is that better one, by the way. That's not exactly what we might expect from this sort of movie, which does ultimately become primarily about the younger lovers, as their simple but apparently deep connection carries through the years, geographical separation, and all sorts of high school dramas, parental disapproval, and personal hang-ups about what love is and can be. That makes the romance sound a lot more interesting than it actually is in Edwards' movie, and that's particularly true because the filmmaker directly attaches it to the more mature, more thoughtful, and more down-to-earth relationship that's playing alongside it.

Our young lovers are Jim (Hero Fiennes Tiffin), a sort of reclusive introvert with one solid friend and a lot of pragmatism, and Ann (Sydney Park), a popular girl with plenty of friends and an active social life. She catches Jim's eye in the library of the high school they both attend, and after forging a note from a school official, he gets Ann alone in the hall during class, which might be cause for concern (There is something a bit off about how immediate, deep, and somewhat possessive Jim's feelings are toward Ann, but the movie makes nothing of it, because this story has to go on well past its apparent breaking point).

They chat with some flirtation, as Jim makes a point of saying how beautiful her eyes are, and in retrospect, that might be level of depth at which this entire relationship remains for its course. He starts giving her rides in his car after school—to the hills on the coast and back to her house—and attends her birthday party, where they share a kiss by way of a game. The romance really begins and quickly escalates from there.

Meanwhile, Jim's parents, Greg (Jeffrey Donovan) and Kay (Diane Kruger), seem to be at one new period in their lives and marriage, with Jim preparing to go college within the year and an older son (who disappears entirely until near the end) joining the Navy. Instead of looking forward to some time alone together and whatever usual steps come with children growing up, it's 2008, and Greg works as a banker. Because of the financial crisis, he is laid off, and since his job experience means little in this devastated economy, he remains unemployed and constantly looking for work in a field that isn't hiring.

One of the more intriguing and, ultimately, frustrating elements of Edwards' screenplay and filmmaking is how fleeting and elusive time is within this narrative. The young romance and the father's initial job worries last, perhaps, for a matter of months in the story's first act, but Edwards rushes through it with quiet scenes of the teenage lovers doing their thing—staring into each other eyes, kissing to music on a mix CD Jim makes for Ann, Ann silently considering what it means to her when Jim says that he loves her after the first time they have sex—and the parents putting on brave faces for their son, even as they deal with the possibility of selling the house.

That feeling is intentional and a key component of the story's point in Edwards mind, if a suddenly final sequence, in which a couple characters talk about how quickly time passes and how vital memories are, is any indication. Watching the movie, one might make the connection between the parents' own past—hinted at in some opening narration—and the teenagers' own romance. At one time, they were this happy, and now, they are like this—struggling to get by and keep the growing tension between them at bay. One day, that might become the story of Jim and Ann, too, if not for the fact that Ann ends the relationship before college, partially because of the influence of her mother (played by Makeba Pace), who insists her daughter doesn't need a man to be happy.

Time jumps ahead then, and while the interrupted but still youthful and shallow love story resumes in a hurried and unconvincing way, the parents' marriage becomes more difficult and even more engrossing. Kruger and Donovan are quite good here in establishing and picking apart the long-time affection between these characters.

First Love, then, is about half an engaging and persuasive story. As for the other half, it becomes the main attraction without really earning that status, and without warning, before Edwards can dig into the emotional logic of connecting these stories, the movie ends.

Back to Home

Buy Related Products

Buy the Soundtrack (Digital Download)