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Palo Alto
The film revolves around the girls and boys growing up with a life full of wrong such as emotion, sex, drugs, alcohol and violence. April, a shy, sensitive girl is the class virgin, torn between an illicit flirtation with her soccer coach Mr. B and an unrequited crush on sweet stoner Teddy. Emily, meanwhile, offers sexual favors to every boy to cross her path - including both Teddy and his best friend Fred, a live wire without filters or boundaries. As one high school party bleeds into the next - and April and Teddy struggle to admit their mutual affection - Freds escalating recklessness starts to spiral into chaos.
7 June 1953, San Francisco, California, USA
19 April 1978, Palo Alto, California, USA
28 March 2003, Los Angeles, California, USA
7 April 1952, USA
October 17, 2014
The story tends to meander but the kids' ups and downs are delicately observed and the performances, especially from Roberts, are never less than believable.
May 22, 2014
These slippery slices of life feel like the most honest, relevant film portrait of adolescence in ages.
May 24, 2014
While it shows Coppola has talent, it's also as aimless as her characters' self-absorbed, self-medicated, joyless lives.
October 17, 2014
Palo Alto is as fuzzy, scattered and aimless as its protagonists' lives.
October 20, 2014
James Franco's collection of autobiographical short stories is adapted into a remarkably evocative film by Gia Coppola, granddaughter of Francis.
October 24, 2014
The drama is scaled to just the right size: kids get into trouble or inadvisable situations, but there are no major melodramatics. We see them in their natural habitat.
June 12, 2014
Ultimately, "Palo Alto" is a messy yet haunting portrait of a particular time in life.
October 19, 2014
Another week, another glacial outing from the ever-expanding Coppola clan depicting the oh so beautiful emptiness of American teenage wildlife.
May 29, 2014
It's accurate to say that "Palo Alto" is another movie by another Coppola about the lives of the rich, bored and disaffected, but that description sells the movie short.
May 23, 2014
That Coppola finds occasional grace and spirit here shows understanding and compassion. Her next assignment? Make a movie that's not about the troubles of the privileged and bored.
June 13, 2014
A pale imitation of the early novels of Bret Easton Ellis, who wrote about young ennui and aimlessness from the inside out.
June 06, 2016
The reality is that for many, [these] four years are marked by a more moderate, complicated set of things, and not the relentless bleakness displayed in [the] film.