FLIPPED

We all have vivid memories of that magical moment when we first saw a special someone and flipped.  It's an experience that never really loses its luster, but there's something about your first childhood crush that stands apart from all those that follow.  That confusing rush of emotions so often morphs into an obsessive love that makes us behave in ways we can't explain, and this is exactly what happens to Juli Baker (Madeline Carroll) and Bryce Loski (Callan McAuliffe) in Rob Reiner's Flipped.

From the moment Bryce moves into the neighborhood, Juli falls head over heels in love with him.  She wants nothing more than to be with Bryce - this much is clear - but the rest is a matter of interpretation.  While Juli struggles to feel accepted by a boy she adores and respects, Bryce only wants to escape the unwanted attention of the peculiar girl from across the street.  What follows is a sort of he said/she said for tweens, as we watch incidents unfold first from Bryce's perspective and then from Juli's.

Set in 1957, Flipped is a sweet slice of Americana that plays upon the misunderstandings that make young love so painful and so hilarious.  As Bryce shudders in horror at the way Juli sniffs his hair in class, Juli waxes poetic about Bryce's watermelon scented shampoo.  Though their feelings about one another are wildly distorted and exaggerated for the bulk of the film, Bryce and Juli are actually on a journey toward understanding.  As they get to know each other better, they slowly piece together the vexing behavior they've witnessed.  Suddenly Bryce isn't the knight in shining armor from across the street and Juli isn't the weird girl with the crummy yard: they're just two kids who really care about one another.

Weirdly, the movie ends while the kids are still in the 8th grade, which seems like a bit of a letdown after all we go through with them.  I fully expected the last bit of narration to reveal that fifty years later they're still happily married, but alas, all we get is a bit of hand-holding in the dirt.  Much of the movie is similarly off-key, never really achieving the resonance it should.  The problem seems to lie in the performances, which never really rise above wooden line readings, even though the cast includes Aidan Quinn, Penelope Ann Miller, Rebecca DeMornay, Anthony Edwards, and John Mahoney.  Even our protagonists are often less than likable - at times Bryce really does seem like a one-dimensional cad, and sometimes Juli actually seems like the creepy girl on the block.  The end result is a benign, family-friendly film that's entirely unlikely to make you flip.

The Blu-Ray edition includes interviews with the film's young stars, and Madeline Carroll teaches us about raising chickens, while Callan McAuliffe shows us how to build the coolest volcano of all time.  We also get the lowdown on Madeline and Callan's almost-kiss.  A standard DVD and a digital copy of the film are also included.