Flirtologist

Logline:

A teenage girl on a contentious family camping trip attempts to amuse herself with a handsome stranger, but she must learn that her budding sexuality is treacherous, and the war between the sexes eternal.

Synopsis:

Fourteen-year-old Reese Patterson seeks one thing: escape. Escape from her father Walt’s insecure tyranny, her older brother Teddy’s contempt; from herself, the pangs of puberty, her addling memories of sexual misadventure.

Most of all, Reese seeks escape from this infernal family camping trip.

Enter Isaac: the beautiful yet tortured older boy at the neighboring campsite, and the embodiment of Reese’s rebellious yearning. Onto Isaac, Reese maps her ultimate escape route. She hunts for a moment alone with him. They circle each other like wolves. Managing to evade her high-strung father, cramped by his own desperation for paternal authority, Reese’s initial attempt at connection with Isaac is choked by sarcastic Teddy.

Decentered by thwarted desire, Reese later finds herself transfixed by an adult magazine in a run-down convenience store. Two disturbing strangers interrupt her reverie. Reese brushes it off: another intrusion. That night, with Walt and Teddy asleep, Reese’s game with Isaac culminates in a clandestine meeting. Vulnerable, Reese reveals her age to him. Equally vulnerable, Isaac’s conscience flickers next to his lust. But Teddy interrupts—and Reese is robbed of closure.

The next morning, Isaac’s sudden departure unmoors Reese. Downtrodden, she tries to duck out of the day’s planned float trip. Her father, however, remains hellbent on seeing this vacation through to the bitter end. With no way out, Reese does her best to avoid her family, managing to break free, if only briefly. She abandons herself to fantasies of Isaac, her last remaining escape.

Having followed Reese, and sensing opportunity at her rare solitude, the two strangers from the convenience store yank her back to reality. They render physical what Reese has only ever suspected—that her ambiguous, adolescent desires are weapons to be used against her.

Directed by Madeline O’Leary (USA)