Lost and Delirious

A film set in a boarding school. Mary is new. Her mother has died, her father has remarried, and she knows nobody here. She shares a room with two others. Paulie is hard, brave and indifferent to rules; Tori is quiet and attached to her family. Mary soon sees it: the two love each other and are hiding it. One day Tori's sister sees them and the news goes round the school. Tori steps back. She denies the relationship, finds a boyfriend and tries to look normal. Paulie does not deny anything. From there the film is about Paulie coming apart. She gets into fights, defies the rules, and finds a wounded hawk and starts training it; the bird is the narrative's plainest symbol. What the narrative is interested in is not love but shame: the two girls live the same thing, and one chooses to continue while the other chooses to hide. The film judges neither, but the outcome is heavy. What the ending is will not be written here. Piper Perabo plays Paulie, Jessica Paré plays Tori and Mischa Barton plays Mary. Graham Greene is in the cast. Léa Pool directed. The source is a novel by Susan Swan. Who it is for: anyone who likes boarding-school drama and stories of adolescence. Who it is not for: anyone put off by melodrama; the film raises its tone markedly toward the end.