Seattle filmmaker Lynn Shelton grows up some with her latest, "Laggies," a wry comedy about someone resisting the push toward adulthood.
Megan (Keira Knightley), in her late 20s, is watching her friends marry and have babies, but she's having trouble finding a direction — and she gets little urging from her indulgent father (Jeff Garlin). But when Anthony (Mark Webber), her boyfriend since high school, finally proposes, Megan freaks out.
She goes into hiding, hanging out with Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz), a high-school girl who asked her to buy beer. Staying in Annika's house also means encountering her single dad, Craig (Sam Rockwell), a divorce lawyer who's suspicious of a 20-something befriending his teen daughter.
Shelton works off a sly and funny screenplay by first-timer Andrea Siegel, which is sharply attuned to Annika's teen angst and Megan's quarter-life qualms. The script also gives Shelton more structure than the improvisation-dependent style of her other films (like "Humpday" or "Your Sister's Sister"), and the director shows she can be witty when she's coloring inside the lines, too.
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'Laggies'
Opens Friday, Nov. 7, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas; rated R for language, some sexual material and teen partying; 99 minutes.
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