LOL details the plight of teenagers roaming the halls of an unforgiving high school. One has to deal with various cliques, the rumor mill, young love, angry teachers, bad grades and threats of detention. When they get home, they have to face annoying siblings, lack of privacy, nagging moms, distant dads and general moodiness that comes with being 17-years-old. Clearly, it’s a lot to tackle and for some reason, director Lisa Azuelos tries to both address and resolve every aspect of teen angst in roughly 90 minutes. The result is LOL. Ironically, not once did I actually laugh out loud as the title cruelly advertised.
Lola (Miley Cyrus) is dumped by her high school boyfriend approximately three minutes into the opening scene. Choosing to act cool instead of devastated, she quickly runs to the arms of her long-time BFF Kyle (Douglas Booth) who has always secretly been in love with her. Lola takes her frustrations out with spiteful jabs of her pen as she records every waking thought in her diary. She picks fights with her mom Anne (Demi Moore) but they never last more than a few seconds before both are apologizing and sharing sweaters and lip gloss again. However, Lola never tells her mom about her anger towards her ex-boyfriend and her changing feelings towards Kyle.
Anne is also juggling a string of emotions. Between trying to raise two younger siblings and keeping Lola on the right path, she is secretly seeing her ex-husband while being dogmatically pursued by an attractive cop. She struggles with choosing what is easy and beginning a new relationship with another man.
Obviously, LOL focuses on the parallel lives of mother and daughter. Both are looking for love. Both are constantly disappointed (in both their love interests and each other) and both are anxious about starting over with the unknown. I imagine Azuelos’ intention was to create a story that featured generations passing love and wisdom back and forth. Sadly, she fell short of the mark in more ways than one.
There was a lot of raw emotion from both Cyrus and Moore and their chemistry was definitely spot on. With that said, their conflicts were escalated at such a rapid pace, the storyline became unbelievable. Before you had a chance to appreciate the tension built in a very valid conversation about promiscuity, Cyrus had received the message and Moore was hugging her. The same goes with Lola’s relationship with her friend Kyle. Just as you are rooting for them, a rumor breaks them up, but they are back together before you can appreciate the journey that brought them back together in the first place. Tack on four or five unnecessary sub-plots with Lola’s friends and you’ve got a hot mess.
LOL is a fast ride that takes your through a semester in the life of an average teenager’s problems in today’s world. Had the story just focused on Lola, there might have been some room to breathe and stretch the details surrounding her character. Unless you really love the artist formerly known as Hanna Montana, I’d say skip watching this entirely.
Video: I enjoyed the sets that featured the homes of all the students.
Audio: I noticed nothing about the audio.
The Cast of LOL (5:18): The entire cast was interviewed as they sang the praises of what a cool chick Miley Cyrus is and how Demi Moore always took them to dinner after the shoot. Again, if you’re not a Miley Cyrus fan, skip it.
Like Mother, Like Daughter (4:34): Demi Moore talks about how you earn a bond with your daughter…it’s not something you can learn. They talk about how the story parallels both the lives of Lola and her mother. There’s an entire section about motherly wisdom from Demi which was a bit forgettable.
Lots of Love for LIsa Azuelos (3:25): Lisa Azuelos talks about the original French version of this film. She also mentioned that she would have never done the remake if Demi Moore said no to the role of Lola’s mom. Apparently, they are best friends and love working together.
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