The Exploding Girl

Dir. Bradley Rust Gray
Starring: Zoe Kazan, Mark Rendall, Franklin Pipp, Maryann Urbano
USA, 2009, 80 mins.

Director Bradley Rust Gray introduces us to Ivy, a somewhat typical American college student at home in Brooklyn on summer break, in his poetic, coming-of-age tale The Exploding Girl.

Zoe Kazan (granddaughter of Elia) carves out a complicated but gentle Ivy. We learn that Ivy has found ways to restrain her emotions in order to keep her epileptic seizures at bay. From the start, Ivy’s childhood friend, Al (Mark Rendall), ends up crashing at her mother’s home, making both of them question whether their friendship could be something more. As Ivy struggles to maintain a long distance relationship with her college boyfriend Greg (who is only a cell phone voice throughout the film), she finds herself growing up a lot during this lonely summer.

The Exploding Girl offers a realistic picture of youth, including all of the emotions and hopes that come with it. The on-screen chemistry between Kazan and Rendall is magnetic, though the relationship of their characters frustrating. The story, while shot and portrayed beautifully, at times borders on banal as this is a plot we have all seen and heard, and most likely experienced once before.