Sanga creatively employs a swirl of text messages, voice-overs, baseball signals and other linguistic modes to beautifully illustrate the jumble of thoughts cascading through young minds.
Coming-of-age films set among the high school set often feel like a dime-a-dozen, but here's one that will leave audiences feeling like a million bucks.
Kerem Sanga's teen romantic drama, First Girl I Loved is a beautiful portrayal of the joys but especially the fears that come with love when it takes an unconventional form.
Usually I'm not on board with films that withhold information and flash back to it later -- often it's just lazy storytelling -- but here, it works, resulting in something impressionist and simple at the same time.
The plot isn't really the film's focus. Sanga paints his characters with such sensitivity and compassion that even when they're making the wrong choices, perhaps even because they're making the wrong choices, our heart goes out to them.
The rest of the piece sometimes gets away from its writer/director but when it focuses on its pair of committed actresses, it's believable, confident and even moving.
For a film that tackles such weighty subjects as consent & homophobia, First Girl I Loved never gets bogged down in melodrama. It's a kind film - heartfelt and empathetic - a memory more than earned.
