Title: Young & Wild

Cast: Alicia Rodríguez, Aline Kuppenheim, María Gracia Omegna and Felipe Pinto

I feel it’s really a hard (no pun intended) undertaking to accurately portray love and sex in a teenager’s life in movies. Some movies might take a more romantic route, while other’s would take a more “high school comedy” route, but in Chilean filmmaker Marialy Rivas’ new film, “Young & Wild,” shows love and sex in an intimate, albeit hyper, way. The hyperactivity serves as a teenager’s attention span, going from subject to subject in a, would be, random way. As the story unfolds that intimacy endears the audience to the main character, Daniela (Alicia Rodríguez).

Daniela is a 17 year-old high school student. On the outside, she appears to be your typical, rebellious teenager, but on the inside she has the appetite for sex and experimentation. Her view of sex is very casual and spontaneous, and very well documented on her blog, youngandwild.blogspot.com. The film weaves in and out of her online life, detailing her sexual encounters to her followers, her actual sexual encounters and her home life with her extremely religious mother and dying “cool” aunt. As the story unfolds, it remains unclear how these elements come together. From the on slot, it seems disjointed and somewhat over-stylized, but as it get closer and closer to the end, those desperate elements become more and more clear.

This film is full of sex, either actual pornography or (seemingly) actual sex, but I never felt for a moment that “Young & Wild” was gratuitous. It was definitely explicit but never gratuitous. This may turn off (no pun intended) some members of the audience, but I feel this approach was needed to successfully build what filmmaker Marialy Rivas was striving for, a certain level of intimacy. It is difficult to show real intimacy on film, without resulting to casting actual couples or showing actual sex. Michael Winterbottom’s “9 Songs” is a perfect example of this. But what is achieved in “Young & Wild” is exciting and strong. We get a good sense of Daniela and her appetite.

The religious side of the film was left with something to be desired. The overall themes concerning religion seems to be antagonistic, but ultimately, it was handle well. Daniela’s overbearing mother is consistently trying to instill Christianity into her daughter. Throughout the whole movie, Daniela is always comparing her strict mother to her more laid-back aunt. It seems as if, going down one path or another with have Daniela ending up like one or the other. This struggle is consistent through the film and delivers a punch.

This is a wonderful movie! It feels like “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World” but with a girl and more sex. The hyper reality is perfectly matched with this intimate character study. But a fair warning to the weak of heart, this film is extremely explicit with sexual content, but overall, very refreshing and exciting.

Technical: B

Overall: B-

by @Rudie_Obias