Pregnant teen Rachel Kitson confides in Josh Hopkins in "Lebanon, Pa."
You can almost smell the freshly mowed grass and cow manure and hear the swish of the tails on the way to "Lebanon, Pa."
Unlike movies set in the Midwest but shot in Los Angeles, where stray palm trees flitter in the background, "Lebanon, Pa." was filmed in the title city and Philadelphia.
But beyond the authentic backdrops, it gets to the heart of everyday American matters: divorce, family estrangement, unplanned teenage pregnancy and the corrosive effect of gossip in school and out.
The story opens with voices in the blackness as a woman breaks up with Will (Josh Hopkins), a 35-year-old ad man in Philadelphia.
- Starring: Josh Hopkins, Samantha Mathis, Rachel Kitson.
- Rating: .
"I'm tired of being mad at you. It's not your fault. It's not that you don't love me, you don't love anyone. It's just not in you, and I don't know if it ever will be," she tells Will.
His day goes seriously downhill when he gets a phone message that his father has died. His parents split years ago, and his father moved to Lebanon, where Will rarely visited.
In Lebanon, Will meets distant relatives and neighbors, becomes the confidant of a pregnant teen, finds himself attracted to a local woman, and weighs whether he could trade life in Philadelphia for Lebanon.
It's not simply small-town sweetness vs. big-city frostiness, though, as writer-director Ben Hickernell uses the story to examine attitudes about race, abortion, sex, family, sacrifice and life-changing decisions.
Mr. Hickernell, who has lived in the two cities of the movie, has said he wanted to go beyond the easy cable-TV talk about the cultural divide in this country and get at people who either begin each meal with a prayer or would never think to bow their heads, for whom abortion is not an option or one of the options, or who send messages with fists or bumper stickers.
Mr. Hopkins is a familiar face, most recently from TV's "Cougar Town" as love interest Grayson, while Mary Beth Hurt plays his mother, Samantha Mathis is a school teacher, and theater actor Ian Merrill Peakes (whose credits include Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre) a second cousin of Will's dad and a neighbor.
It's Rachel Kitson, a theater major at Temple University and a member of a sketch comedy troupe, as pregnant high school senior CJ who emerges as the solid surprise.
The character shares the secret of her pregnancy with Will awfully early and easily -- although he is a stranger and not as invested in her life -- but the young actress makes CJ a jumble of naivete, rebelliousness, independence and the teen tendency to emotionally bruise easily.
The actions of one adult, who vacillates between recklessness and caution, seem improbable, but there are consequences to her decisions. "Lebanon, Pa." is a little movie about big choices that doesn't go for the usual happy Hollywood ending and instead opts for real-life dissonance, disappointment and fresh beginnings and endings.
Opens today at the Oaks Theater in Oakmont. Director Ben Hickernell and producer Jason Contino will take questions after Sunday's 2:30 and 5 p.m. shows.
Movie editor Barbara Vancheri: bvancheri@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1632. Read her Mad About the Movies blog at www.post-gazette.com/movies.First published on May 6, 2011 at 12:00 am
Source: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11126/1144447-120-0.stm?cmpid=movievideo.xml
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