As You Are

Three high school students in a small town in the early 1990s: two boys and a girl. They meet when their families combine, they attach to each other, and at some point that attachment moves past what the town can accept. The film opens on a police interview, so you know from the start that something went wrong, and the telling moves between that room and the past. It is Miles Joris-Peyrafitte's first film. Setting it in the nineties is a deliberate choice, meant to show how alone these kids would have been before social media. The title comes from a Nirvana song and grunge runs through the texture of the whole thing. Owen Campbell, Charlie Heaton and Amandla Stenberg lead. It won the special jury prize for drama at Sundance in 2016. Its flaw is the narrative device. The interrogation structure is used to force tension, and some flashbacks are left blurred for no good reason. Who it is for: viewers who like melancholy coming of age drama. Who it is not for: anyone who wants clarity.