
Fourteen year old Lila envies the ease with which her best friend Chiara, on the cusp of her sixteenth birthday, deals with boys. Chiara has been sexually active, although she has only gone to third base with her current boyfriend, Patrick. With no experience whatsoever on the sexual front, Lila has no adult guidance with her mother having passed, and she and her father often being at odds with each other. Lila's primary exposure to sex or sexual foreplay is being the third w... (Full plot summary below)
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Fourteen year old Lila envies the ease with which her best friend Chiara, on the cusp of her sixteenth birthday, deals with boys. Chiara has been sexually active, although she has only gone to third base with her current boyfriend, Patrick. With no experience whatsoever on the sexual front, Lila has no adult guidance with her mother having passed, and she and her father often being at odds with each other. Lila's primary exposure to sex or sexual foreplay is being the third wheel in Chiara and Patrick's outings. In her naivety, Lila believes that what she sees between Chiara and Patrick has the potential to last forever. Regardless of her total inexperience, Lila likes to portray herself as having at least gone to third base, she doing so by mimicking what she hears from Chiara and other sexually active teens. In her own mind, Lila wants to lose her virginity, despite, if she was honest with herself, being more closely emotionally mature to her twelve year old neighbor, Nate, than Chiara, Nate who would most likely be her confidante if she were to tell the truth about the issue of her sexuality. She believes the easiest candidate to be her first is Sammy, an older teen, who purportedly will sleep with anyone. As such, Lila begins to insert herself into Sammy's life, he who would not have even known who she was if she didn't do so. In doing so, Lila begins to place herself in situations where she is not emotionally mature enough to handle without being hurt in any aspect of the word.
Leave your thoughts about It Felt Like Love.
| Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeSadly believable and benefiting from an unshowy performance by first-timer Gina Piersanti, it will have many viewers eager to see what Hittman does next. |
| New York PostSara StewartGorgeously shot in Brooklyn's beachfront neighborhoods and devoid of easy sentimentality, "It Felt Like Love" features realistic performances all around, understandable given the cast of mostly first-time actors. |
| Chicago ReaderBen SachsHittman draws attention to the pervasive cultural forces (rap music, Internet pornography, suggestive dancing on TV) that present young girls as sexual objects, making the scenes of exploitation seem sadly inevitable. |
| RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzHowever heartfelt and keenly observed this pessimism is, it becomes monotonous. |
| amNewYorkRobert LevinA coming-of-age movie down to its marrow. |
| Playback:stlSarah Boslaugh[Hittman's] offbeat visual style ... helps put you inside the mind of the lead character, for whom nothing is clear. |
| Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzWhat's exciting about the film is the confidence Hittman brings to it, particularly with her visual choices. The dancing in particular is striking, with surprising cuts and edits. It Felt Like Love isn't a great movie, but it is a promising one, for everyone involved. |
| The PlaylistKatie WalshIt Felt Like Love, marks the arrival of a new crop of talent to watch, behind the camera and in front. |
| NPRElla TaylorResolutely descriptive, It Felt Like Love doesn't exactly have a plot, which feels absolutely right for a film whose elliptical yet intensely focused visual style seem to flow directly from Lila's consciousness. |
| AV ClubA.A. DowdBy the end, audiences may end up craving a more charitable, less dour study of teenage mating habits — one, like the less “realistic” Raising Victor Vargas, that doesn’t portend trauma for any sapling trying to blossom too soon. |