I’ll be honest: whenever I see the name “Keira Knightley” attached to a film, I usually run screaming in the other direction. I don’t know why the Love Actually actress rubs me the wrong way, but she really does. So it comes as a great shock to me that after watching the trailer for her latest film, Laggies, I actually want to see the movie.
Then again, maybe it’s not such a shock. Laggies also stars Sam Rockwell and Chloe Grace Moretz and was directed by Humpday writer/director Lynn Shelton, so it’s already rising in my estimation. The plot itself sounds like something Zack Braff would come up with, only without the hipster-angst.
Knightly is Megan, a 28 year old young woman in the midst of an early-life crisis. Following an unwanted proposal from her boyfriend, she gives herself a week to try and figure things out, prompting her to begin hanging around with Annika (Moretz) and Annika’s (hot) dad (Rockwell). Of course, many of Megan’s friends thinks that she’s just putting off the inevitable facts of adulthood that include marriage, kids, and a mini-van.
Again: I would be suspicious of this film were it not for the otherwise stellar cast and the fact that it actually seems to ring true to the experiences of quite a number of people in their late-20s. Sure, most of us are not going to get a chance to be hot and bothered for Sam Rockwell (more’s the pity), but that sense of arrested adolescence and the desire to not conform to the expected goals of being an adult is all too true a story for a lot of Millennials. What’s more, it’s nice to see a movie about young women both written and directed by women; there aren’t a lot of those films going around.
Laggies will premiere on October 24. Until then, you can watch the first trailer below.
