Palm Trees and Power Lines (2023 | US | 110 minutes | Jamie Dack)
First and foremost there should be a trauma warning on this film.
Young Lea is lost and floating in a vast sea of loneliness. She tries to find solace in her best friend and by attempting a shallow physical relationship with a boy, but nothing really brings her happiness. With an absent single mom who only shows adoration when there’s no boyfriend to distract her, Lea has no one to show her what a strong, positive relationship looks like.
Then enters Tom. Lea, the perfect catch for a predator, is quickly reeled in, hook, line and sinker. Convinced by this much older man that she means the world to him, he slowly creates a facade of loving boyfriend that is too irresistible to ignore. Making excuse after excuse to herself why things seem off, she falls into a world she does not want to be a part of.
As a critic, I’m supposed to keep personal feelings out of my reviews and simply speak to the quality of a film. However, on occasion, as a human being I have the right to speak my mind and this film definitely calls for it. So much could have been done to create a bond with this young woman, witness her emotional destruction, yet still pull her out of despair in the end. As the film rolls on, it gets harder and harder to even keep eyes on the screen as Lea is willingly throwing herself deeper into an inevitable hell we only hope she can claw her way out of. We plead inwardly that she realizes what’s happening before it’s too late, but as the inescapable truth reveals itself and is shot in horrifying detail, I just wanted to shut it off altogether. Thinking somehow the director has to bring this girl back to a hard-won redemption, I continued and was rewarded with an even deeper well of despair and pain.
There’s something to be said for shocking viewers into action, but in Palm Trees and Power Lines there was an empty chasm where the lessons should have been. It’s hard to say whether this was an indictment on grooming and the underage sex trade or a how-to on starting your own; especially when we realize Lea is so desperate for love that she’d run back to something so unspeakably heinous in the end. The acting was well done, the writing went straight to the point, but I can’t give it more than one and a half stars for it’s irresponsibly matter-of-fact depiction of something that should be nothing but loathed.
Palm Trees and Power Lines is in theaters and on VOD now