This was an absolutely, as someone else before said, textbook angsty coming of age movie. The thing is I usually really like a good independent coming of age movie. But this was terrible. I struggled through this movie every step of the way. In fact, half-way through the movie, I had to stop, go to scene selections, and pick the last chapter of the movie to browse it to see if the movie got interesting. It looked like it did although was pretty sure they were going to find a way to make it underwhelming anyway, which they did. I have a lot of problems with this movie. The beginning is one. After watching the whole thing, I can say with confidence that they threw in that gun-in-the-mouth scene just to shock us into watching the whole thing to see how the events lead up to that. But it turns out that he never actually does it anyway. Another problem is that the person playing the girl looked too old for the character. She is playing a 16/18 year old girl but her face looks like late 20's perhaps even early 30's. It completely drew me out of the movie. Then there is the fact that after only the second time of even seeing each other the girl kisses Mason. There wasn't even any good build up to it. It just made her seem slutty. I also found her suicide highly aggravating. I am sorry but she was not mentally strong enough to kill herself by simply throwing herself in the slow-moving stream. She could not have resisted bringing herself back up for air. Even Virginia Woolf had to weigh herself down with rocks so she could drown herself.Another bothersome event in the film was the fact that they just skipped the kid's 2 years in jail. I mean they just completely ignored a great opportunity to build on the depth of his character, his relationship with his parents, and development of anything with Danny. There is also the fact that no one in this town goes to high school or college or talks about it when they are out of it or not going to it. At least Mason should have been talking about it because he's supposed to be the angsty teen whose too smart for his dive of a town. But he is not smart because to him apparently the only way to escape his town is suicide or in the end to hop on a train and in probability become a bum. So in the end he is stupid and depressed which makes for a very uncompelling character. I thought the Father did a good job but they didn't do enough with him. We don't even learn if he won the election or not after he ends up accidentally killing one person and sending his son to jail for. The only thing I find no fault with in this movie is the setting. It is gorgeous and I doubt anyone can argue against that.

A film about teen coming of age crap with a nowhere plot and boring characters. Mainly, the scenes in this film are stale and loaded with stupid dialogue that has no comprehensible purpose to telling any kind of tale that is remotely interesting. The first 15 minutes are watchable and there are the occasional interesting scenes here and there but the whole thing lacks any cohesion or purpose. The movie attempts to be edgy by continually dancing around the visual of this kid putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. But that's about the best it can do in the edgy department. This movie is so dull that thankfully, it is easily forgettable.

I really can't understand why people keep making films that have basically been done before. Here's a common formula these days: Precocious loner teenager who doesn't fit in, hangs out with the wrong crowd, has a dysfunctional family, yet has a unique, intelligent and thoughtful nature that sets him apart from others. His eccentricities cause clashes with others. He generally meets a girl who likes him because he's different. Throw in a few tragic events and some bizarre twists and you've got yourself a quirky young art drama. Dandelion is textbook. About a half an hour into the film I realized how really similar it was to another film of this type, Donnie Darko, and this opinion was only strengthened as the film went on. I'm not saying that this kind of cookie-cutter quality is enough to entirely ruin a film all by itself, but Dandelion's problem is that it has little to make it interesting. At least Donnie Darko had a bizarre science fiction plot and occasionally good humor. Dandelion is for the most part unremarkable. The writing is almost pure cornball- characters wax about love and life in short, uninteresting conversations. The plot has its unique twist, but decides to give it little attention and move on to the boring heartwarming business at hand. The kid is pretty good. The girl is awful. The performances given by the parents are by far the best parts of them film, in particular the stressful father with regrets, the only character in the film with much ambiguity about him. By far the best aspect of the film is its cinematography. Tim Orr, who you may also know from his work on the similarly rural (the unsimilarly fantastic) films of David Gordan Green, is good at shooting grass, air, and water and making it look great, though the nature shots appear too often for my tastes, seemingly between every scene. And I swear I heard almost nothing in the film that I hadn't heard before. At one point early on, on his first real meeting with the love interest, the main character says "I think love is something people make up to make themselves feel better." This is just about the most poignant or deep thing the kid, or any character, can think to say. If you think this observation is the pinnacle of brilliance, you'll probably love the film. It will also help if you really really like to watch wheat fields blow in the wind.Want a good 'troubled precocious loner' movie? Watch The Adventures of Sebastian Cole.

In my opinion, everything in this film is superior. The acting was incredible, storyline, plot and screen writing were very realistic. Some might say that the writing had too many curse words in it, but I think that it really showed realism. I actually cried a little during this film, and that's saying something, because I never cry during movies. I always look at them like a critic and manage not to cry during sad dramas. This one was very well casted, makeup was well done...and everything else. The Mullich parents, I think, had the best acting, especially Arliss Howard (Luke), since his character was very deep and complex. I think he pulled it off quite nicely. Taryn Manning and Vincent Kartheiser acted their characters incredibly well, the realism of it all just blew me away. I thought that everything seemed real and was all very well done. I applaud everyone involved and I would recommend this film to a great number of people.