Struck by Lightning: Review

It's weird how tastes change. Five years ago I think I would have loved this film and hailed it as one of my favourites but 19 year old Chloe thinks it kind of sucks...

Recently I've been binge watching Glee at a rate which is probably unhealthy. My favourite character in the show is Kurt played by Chris Colfer and when I saw he was a writer and had written a coming of age film, I was pretty excited to watch it. I quite like an indie teen flick especially if it makes an effort to show a more realistic depiction of an American high school than what you might see on... well... Glee.

Being completely honest this film just didn't know what it was. It sets up something that looks like it could be funny or interesting but doesn't have the commitment to stick to it instead resorting to family melodrama and half-baked concepts.

Carson Phillips is an ambitious young writer from Clovis with dreams of becoming a hit journalist. In the beginning of the film Carson is struck by lighting randomly on the way to his car and dies. The film then winds back, showing his life in high school that leads up to that moment.

Feeling ignored by his classmates and trapped by his medication obsessed mother Carson has become a vindictive and sometimes cruel person. However, in order to get into his dream college he learns he needs more than just extracurriculars, he needs something to show his talent so he decides to start a school literary magazine. None of his classmates (understandably) want to join so he ends up using his journalistic skills to find dirt on them all so he can blackmail them into writing something.

There is very nearly something good here so I've been thinking about what I would change if I was a script editor. First of all there is a line in the film which really stuck out for me said by Carson's grandmother who is suffering from dementia. She says something about Carson always having a cloud over his head. I really, really wish there had been a literal representation of this throughout the film apart from the lightning bolt at the beginning and the end. Carson is a depressed individual on medication which can explain a lot of his outbursts but the film has a really weak way of showing this because that's not what the film is about. I think this is definitely what the film should have been about and a symbolic device like that could have worked really, really well.

Secondly, I would have built to something better than the ending we got. I don't mind the fact he got struck by lightning. I actually thought it was quite clever but without a proper resolution to the story it felt undeserved and emotionless. The lack of character given to his classmates is my biggest problem. Carson is essentially a bully and while none of his peers understand him, he takes no time getting to know them either and there lies the biggest problem. The message of the film was utterly lost on me because it just seemed like a story about someone with a bad life... who then dies in a freak accident...

There were ideas and themes along the way which I thought showed so much promise but it's all set up before a weird slide into a clunky unfulfilling ending. I think I would have tried to create more of an alliance around the people he blackmails. People that would have to join together against his reign of terror and force Carson to realise what he did was wrong so the character could go through more of a journey before the end.

If this film had known what it was about then I think it could have been really good. If it had focused on the mental health aspect rather than the family drama then I think it could have been really powerful because unlike a lot of reviewers, I don't think Carson was wrong to be an unlikable character. People with a life like his are not without their baggage and battle scars and I thought having an unlikable high school protagonist was a nice breath of fresh air.

The allegory of having a cloud always over his head would have made much more sense maybe with some animation of when the cloud parts or greys or turns stormy.

As it stands though this whole film just comes off as being naive. I've never read the book so I have no idea if it just got lost in adaptation but everything just seemed so surface level. It provides some good moments and witty writing but I always felt like I was waiting for it to "get good".

It's given me an idea for a killer short film though... so there's that...

A decent teen film but there are much better out there.

5/10