Delayed Reaction: Saving Zoe

Premise: A high school Freshman learns about how her sister was killed several months back.

Probably the less I can say the better for this movie. It's that weird mix of "adult topic" and "young writing" that really doesn't work for anyone. The way characters talk to each other is blunt and repetitive in a way that you tend to see in shows meant for preteens (who aren't great at picking up nuance), but this is a very grim movie about murder and eventually child pornography. There's blood, swearing, and drugs. It really shouldn't be watch by anyone young enough to not be bothered by how dire some of the dialogue is. It's a Catch-22 of a movie. I also have a hard time looking past Laura Marano playing a high school Freshman. At youngest, Marano was 22 when she filmed this. While she looks young, there's a big difference between passing for 14/15 and 16/17 (which is why I wasn't as bothered by her then 25-year-old sister Vanessa playing a 16-year-old). And yes, I am fully aware that I'm complaining about this as someone who considers Superbad - with Jonah Hill passing for a high school senior - one of his favorite movies*. Even on a technical level this movie is pretty rough. There are random scenes when the sound mixing is just awful, like it wasn't boom mic-ed properly and we're listening to a recording from across the room. Speaking of the rooms, this is the kind of movie that looks like it was shot in a model house that they didn't have time to decorate.

*To bring that thought full circle, in Superbad, there's a flashback to Martha MacIsaac's character as a little girl. The little girl was Laura Marano: a fact that makes me really appreciate how long ago Superbad was.

Neither Marano sister was bad in the movie. Laura is a capable lead who really feels like she has the lead role in a CW series in her future. Vanessa does what she can to make her character feel real. It's tough when she exists entirely in diary entries or her sister's imagination.

I mainly watched this movie because it fit a very specific time window I had, seeing the Marano sisters actually playing sisters intrigued me, and I like to make a curve-ball movie selection on occasion. In hindsight, I should've done a scotch more research on this to learn that it was really not for me; not that I know who was the target audience.

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend