![](\"https:\/\/pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com\/2018\/07\/winter-flies.jpg?w=1000\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Reviewed by Helios Miller. Viewed at the 2019 Santa Barbara Film Festival.<\/p>\n
Two adolescents coming of age, slide through Czech Republic in a stolen car with wit, bravery, and luck. From bumping the beastie boys to jumping into a freezing lake to save a drowning dog, Winter Flies has a warm heart beating with character.<\/span><\/p>\n We start with what will be the end of their journey, the driver, being interrogated by a cop, refusing to rat out his passenger. Riding in second seat, a stocky boy in a ghillie suit with an airsoft gun strapped around his shoulder. We retrace their journey across the entire length of the country, left itching to find out what will come next.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What really made this film were our two leads, <\/span>Tom\u00e1s Mrv\u00edk and Jan Franti\u0161ek Uher, brought a charming balance of sharp wit and awkward fidgeting to their characters. The moment they meet their chemistry quickly make them a loveable pair as they talk about sex, women, and how they see the world. While they\u2019re youth makes them ignorant of some of the world, their reality is very hard and adult. With smart dialogue and editing that carries the film\u2019s momentum to the end, watching these kids step into the unknown is incredible.<\/span><\/p>\n Yes this is a coming of age story, but what separates it from the rest is an even balance of reality and grand story. As they face their trials, our characters interact with an unforgiving world with genuine heart. While their problem solving is adventurous and good for the screen, the film never loses touch with its world. Their strange adventure snowballs into a controlled chaos that is exciting and believable because it stays close to the ground. This only brings us closer to simple and refined narrative.<\/span><\/p>\n The only real issue I had with this film is its ending wasn\u2019t as satisfying as I hoped it would be. I\u2019d say this is due to it\u2019s attempt to stay grounded, as real life doesn\u2019t have very tightly wrapped up endings where all the threads are nicely put together. Amazingly while a lot of moments are never called back to, this film still maintains a very strong narrative momentum where you\u2019re never waiting for scenes to be over. This film is crudely lovable in all the best ways. If you want to see a human story that just can\u2019t help to be fun to watch, please see <\/span>Winter Flies<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reviewed by Helios Miller. Viewed at the 2019 Santa Barbara Film Festival. Two adolescents coming of age, slide through Czech Republic in a stolen car with wit, bravery, and luck. From bumping the beastie boys to jumping into a freezing lake to save a drowning dog, Winter Flies has a warm heart beating with character. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":247009,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,337],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2019"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/247009"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44385,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44384\/revisions\/44385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}