Electrick Children (2012) - Rebecca Thomas

Rachel, a young teenager, lives with her fundamentalist Morman family in Utah.  On her 15th birthday she discovers a "forbidden" cassette tape with Rock music.  Enamored by this music which she has never experienced, Rachel has what could be called an "out of body" experience and in three months time Rachel turns up pregnant.  Rachel claims to have had an immaculate conception from listening to the music but her parents believe an intolerable transgression has happened between her and her brother.  With an arranged marriage planned, Rachel runs away with her brother to Las Vegas in search of the man who sings on the cassette tape.  Rebecca Thomas' Electrick Children is certainly a unique coming of age tale that unfortunately doesn't live up to its promising concept.  Like her central character, director Rebecca Thomas grew up in the Mormon faith and she clearly doesn't have anything particularly good to say.  This is an unabashed celebration of modern life from artistic expression to medicine and the director's venom for Mormonism ends up clouding the film for me.  This isn't to say that the director's message isn't genuine, but I found Billy Zane's character, the father of the family, far too one-dimensional, like a walking caricature of Mormonism.  Julia Garner certainly deserves praise for her performance as Rachel, bringing a great blend of naivety and confidence to her performance.  Electrick Children is a film in which ones enjoyment may in fact lay in where they stand about Religion but for me the film just fails to have much to say on the subject, ultimately feeling much more like a fluff piece towards the end than anything particularly challenging.
5.5/10

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