one of my absolute favorites!

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

"It Felt Like Love" is first-time writer-director Eliza Hittman's coming-of-age meditation on a Brooklyn teenager's burgeoning sexuality. The teenager in question is Lila who lives with her permissive, aging hippie of a father and occasionally brags about imaginary sexual exploits to Nate, a boy who lives in the neighborhood. The mother is not a factor, having died of cancer some years before.Lila spends most of her time with her good friend Chiara and her boyfriend, Patrick. While with them at the beach, she makes the acquaintance of Sammy, an older college student who she ends up pursuing. When Sammy gets drunk and passes out, Lila crawls into bed with him. The next morning Sammy can't remember anything and Lila implies that maybe they had sex together.Mike D'Angelo, writing in "Dissolve," bemoans the generic nature of the world Lila inhabits: "Lila exists in an art-movie void, with no friends or interests that don't directly reflect her predicament; the film is set in the present (characters text each other, etc.), but so strenuously avoids any sort of cultural specificity that just a few revisions could shift it to 1987…That sort of sparseness can be deliberate—a means of conveying timelessness—but here it just seems like a failure of imagination, turning Lila into an emblem rather than a girl."Eventually Lila finds herself over her head when she finds herself alone with the older guys. Matt Seitz of "RogerEbert.com" describes the encounter but remains dissatisfied: "Several scenes in which Lila hangs out with Sammy and his buddies in a man-cave are mortifying. She is clearly an interloper, and they treat her like one, and somehow their snickering indifference and dimwit innuendo are part of the male-female dance in this world. Lila's closed-off expressions suggest that she if not welcomes, at least expects to be treated with contempt. These rec room scenes rank with the most pessimistic depictions of teen sexuality in recent cinema. Yet however heartfelt and keenly observed this pessimism is, it becomes monotonous. A.A. Dowd of the "A.V. Club" gets to the essence of "It Felt Like Love's" limitations: "Lila, for all the authentic awkwardness Piersanti breathes into her, is defined so entirely by her mission—embarked upon with an equal measure of anxiety and anticipation—that she never quite comes alive as a character.""It Felt Like Love" has some impressive cinematography but Ms. Hittman's one-note portrait of teenage obsession, prevents us from believing that these are real people. Nonetheless, I see good things for this director in the future, as this film still shows potential.

It's all there: the cool best friend who keeps you around mostly so she can feed off your envy; the cool guy whose slut-boy reputation doesn't guarantee he'll bother with you; the younger friend you try to impress by copying your cool best friend's vulgarity without realizing that it is in fact vulgar, not cool; plus the resolution that is no resolution at all, because this isn't a John Hughes film where you triumph over the miseries of adolescence, and the best our heroine can do is survive them. Most tellingly, the most devastating possibility Lila faces isn't what you might expect it to be.Some have criticized this film because it isn't clear whether Lila's interest in Sammy is love, lust, competition with cooler Chiara, or just curiosity, but I think that's the point--Lila herself doesn't know. More to the point, Lila doesn't know HER SELF: in a world where superficial sex is celebrated (Chiara pretends each of her shallow relationships is The Only One) and traditional crushes are embarrassing, Lila doesn't get a chance to work through old-fashioned puppy-love until she's ready for something else. If I don't give it a 10, it's because I'm not sure I could bear to watch it again. The desperation for something, anything at all to happen, even something catastrophic, is too much like the real thing.

When your main actor delivers a bad performance, your movie is in trouble. I know some people may be uncomfortable with the subject of the movie. But it is either because they forgot the time they were that age or to be politically correct. In the case of the young girl portrayed in this film, I was at first wondering if she had real desires for the opposite sex or if she just wanted to be the equal of her friend. The latter seems to be the obvious reason, but it is not clear because the main actress never gives us a concrete sign of the finality of what she is looking for. It is disappointing because the topic is not without interest.

A movie about a 14 year old girl who decides she wants a boyfriend, because her best friend always seems happy with hers, and pursues an older guy. We follow her throughout the film, and watch her thought pattern, decision making, and emotions.I...am not sure on this one. I watched it about a week ago at Sundance 13 and every time I think about it, I can't decide if I liked it. The production of the movie felt fine. It didn't feel poorly made, and the actors all played their characters pretty well, however, the main character didn't seem to ever show emotions. The movie definitely stirred up some weird feelings inside of me, and wasn't all that comfortable to sit through at parts.All in all, I'd probably not suggest it.