Sweet Thing (Joe Lia,2008):USA

Reviewed by Aleksandra Mraovic. Viewed at The Santa Barbara Film Festival.

Sweet Thing is a movie about being young and living freely during a summer. The general idea behind the movie is making the best out of a summer when you don´t have any other plans. But it left you a little disappointed because nothing was resolved. Even though it had a lot of flaws the movie was still interesting.

The movie is about Jody and Liz. They live their separate lives with their own issues when it comes to their families and relationships. Jody gets a job in her father’s architecture firm but would much rather be doing something else. She comes up with an idea to sell ice cream to the children in the block just for the joy of seeing the children happy. Liz is experimental and loves getting a rush from breaking an entire and getting high. She meets a guy and she loves to make him crazy about her but she won´t have sex with him. She doesn´t feel comfortable when it comes to that. Later in the movie, Jody and Liz meet and become best friends. They start to feel something more for each other but whether they have real feelings about each other or they are only experimenting is up to your imagination.

The movie was disappointing because there wasn´t really a main theme in the movie. There was no point with the movie, besides showing how two girls spent their summer. Judy had a bad relationship with her father and we never got to see how it was solved. She also had a big drug problem. Even though her parents got help for her, she still continued to use drugs. But you could still see what the director’s point was with the movie. Everything doesn´t have to turn out as you want it to. When you are young you experiment with a lot of different things and you deal with a lot of issues. When you are young, you try out a lot of things just to learn more about yourself. Knowing your place in this world is not always easy.

This movie was the director´s Joe Lia first movie. I suppose that a director´s first movie is not supposed to be a really good one but Joe Lia did a good job. He really captured the youth and the problems that most are facing. As I mentioned before, Sweet Thing is an interesting and adventures movie. The movie leaves you a little bit hanging because nothing is resolved but it´s still worth seeing.