This debut from 28-year-old indie director Rebecca Thomas is a low-fi but fascinating tale of teenage rebellion, inspired by her own Mormon upbringing in Nevada.
Starting out in dusty rural Southern Utah, Electrick Children is the coming-of-age story of Rachel, who lives in a repressive, fundamentalist Mormon colony. On her 15th birthday Rachel, played by an angelic-looking Julia Garner, discovers a forbidden cassette tape with a cover of Blondie's Hanging on the Telephone. Three months later she discovers she's pregnant and claims it's an immaculate conception as a result of listening to rock music.
Her parents blame her brother Will (Liam Aiken); he is asked to leave the colony, and her father (Billy Zane) organises an arranged marriage for Rachel with a young Mormon boy. Rachel quickly hightails it to Las Vegas (with Will hiding out in the back of the truck) on a quest to find the singer on the cassette tape. Instead, she falls in with a group of hard-core kids, including the troubled Clyde (Culkin), who teach Rachel and Will a few realities about life.
Garner is marvellous as Rachel, and her calm and ethereal presence gives this film a dream-like feel. She's naive yet curious, and fragile but determined, as she wanders Nevada like a modern-day Virgin Mary looking for answers and a place to settle.
Thomas's magical realist treatment works beautifully. It's a spiritual story and the approach is gently paced, nicely acted, and dark and moody - literally, much of it was shot at night and is hard to make out.
