Sitting in a cinema screen yesterday afternoon, I overheard a couple next to me talking about their experience watching PALO ALTO. “Well, we’ve got friends living out on the West Coast in Palo Alto with teenage kids, and I’m sorry to say, but it sounds like all they’ve got is a decade of blowjobs and marijuana ahead of them.” I wasn’t totally sure whether the couple were talking about their friends, or their friends’ children. I did establish, though, that they had not read James Franco’s collection of short stories, from which the film is adapted, before watching the UK premiere at Edinburgh International Film Festival. PALO ALTO is the debut feature film from Gia Coppola – granddaughter of Francis, and cousin to Nicolas Cage and Jason Schwartzman. Franco’s short stories feature a number of teenage protagonists in loosely interconnecting adventures. Characters from these short stories have been amalgamated to bring the dissolute teenagers down to four in the feature film. Franco has co-authorship on the screenwriting credits with Coppola, and takes on the juiciest role for an adult character in the film – the sexy but creepy sports coach Mr. B, who abuses his position of authority by commencing an affair with one of his soccer students, April.

Even a surprisingly humorous cameo from Val Kilmer as a stoner step-dad works well on screen.

Emma Roberts’ performance as April is outstanding: she is utterly convincing in her portrayal of a complex and conflicted young woman faced with some difficult life choices. Even a surprisingly humorous cameo from Val Kilmer as a stoner step-dad works well on screen. Nat Wolf and Jack Kilmer are also perfectly cast as best buddies Teddy and Fred. The context of Teddy’s controlled, pre-meditated mania is not revealed as openly as it is in the original text. “Why’d do you work so hard at being crazy?” Fred asks his friend near the end of the film. The rather shocking explanation is divulged in the short stories, but appears only fleetingly in the film in what turns out to be a rather funny scene on a sofa with Teddy’s dad and Fred one evening. Closer to MYSTERIOUS SKIN than CLUELESS in its treatment of American teenagers, PALO ALTO is a fine calling card for another member of the prodigiously talented Coppola clan. And whilst LOST IN TRANSLATION is great, this film easily surpasses her aunt Sofia Coppola’s most recent film, THE BLING RING. It’s all down to the blowjobs and marijuana, obviously… httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTqMUu1iTIo