Dakota Skye (2008, R)

This one has kind of  a cool concept.  The title character is an Arizona, high school senior, misfit who has the power to always see the truth behind people's statements.  If someone says something that's not 100% true then she'll see subtitles (not always at the bottom of the screen, but in whatever part of the screen has some available space... placement is kind of like dialogue bubbles in a comic book) telling the true version of it.  Having this ability from a young age will inherently influence someone's behavior and outlook on life, and she basically withdraws from life.  She doesn't really engage in interactions or activities, she doesn't get a cell phone or a driver's license, she doesn't have any plans for after high school.  Most of her friends are studying for the SAT so they can go to college, but not everyone goes to college after high school and Dakota claims she doesn't want to, but she could still stand to figure out what she'll do instead (waitress, trade school, peace corps, join a band, hitchhike across the country with a serial killer, whatever).  She's not exactly a hero of mine, but she did make one well-adjusted/healthy observation (as narration) about her boyfriend: "he's a liar, but not worse than anyone else"(because everyone's a liar to some degree and she factored that into the equation).


Dakota sleepwalks through her life until she meets her boyfriend's lifelong friend from out of town, Jonah, for whom she receives no translation.  Does he never lie?  Does her power not work on him?  She does try to get him to lie several times and he is remarkably candid and seems very genuine.  He talks about living life in the moment and his dialogue is the best in the movie (the rest is ok, but uninspired).  I think I could best describe Jonah with a term I pretty much came up with while watching the movie (though it wouldn't surprise me if someone else came up with it similarly): "beanbag chair philosopher".  The pre-existing term "armchair philosopher" refers to someone who you can imagine sitting in an armchair with a pipe next to a fire discussing their untested theories on life with other armchair philosophers (which honestly does describe any philosopher at all).  A beanbag chair philosopher would be a younger version (probably also with a pipe but with a different kind of smoke), perhaps a neo-hippy pseudo-intellectual type that you only tend to find in high school or college.  They don't have to be lousy people, but they claim to understand life without having lived much of it or having any visible means of support.  I've probably offended all of my beanbag chair philosopher readers just now, but please understand that Jonah is my favorite character from this film.  Actually, I kind of want to buy a beanbag chair now.  That would be the most comfortable place in the world to listen to music and chat or read.  Anyway the film is largely based on different conversations and interactions between Dakota and the other characters and she eventually considers what she wants in life.  And I must say that the composition of the frame in most of the shots was remarkably good.  I think the cameraman must have studied 2D art.

I imagine the ideal audience for this film would be an amalgamation of the main characters of the movie: a high school misfit and/or garage band member (Dakota's boyfriend) and/or beanbag chair philosopher.  For me, the movie is only about 3 stars (middle of the road), and it would have been a 2 or 2.5 without the concept.  It has a really cool concept, but most of the story just didn't impress me.  I'm trying to figure out what I'd want to get out of the movie, but the course of events pretty much make sense given Dakota's personality which is one of the likely outcomes of her ability.  It's basically decent food-for thought for armchair/beanbag chair philosophers.  A lot of the film that didn't appeal to me was similar to the parts of True Adolescents that didn't appeal to me, so if you liked one you might like the other.  If you don't like those young whipper-snappers who whine about life and don't do anything, then you won't be able to stand this movie.  Durn kids!