by Lisa Nystrom
Worth: $12.50
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Emily Alyn Lind, Shubham Maheshwari, Esther McGregor, Joseph Zada
Intro:
… a lavender-haze fairytale of beauty, privilege, first love and deceit.
Prime Video continues their reliable pattern of bringing Young Adult books to the screen with E. Lockhart’s 2014 novel adapted by co-creators Julie Plec and Carina Adly Mackenzie. With shows like The Vampire Diaries (Plec) and Roswell, New Mexico (Mackenzie) between them, We Were Liars is in just the right hands to deliver a lavender-haze fairytale of beauty, privilege, first love and deceit.
The story unfolds in a non-linear time jump, following a series of summers spent at the family patriarch’s beachfront property, each summer helpfully numbered by the characters according to their age at the time: Summer 8 where it all started, and Summer 16 where it all went wrong.
Sinclair cousins Cadence, Johnny, and Mirren (Emily Alyn Lind, Joseph Zada, Esther McGregor) are “old money” while their best friend Gat (Shubham Maheshwari) shares their adventures but not their wealth or privilege. David Morse dominates as the head of the family, Harris Sinclair. Stubborn, authoritarian and yet generous when it comes to his three daughters, Harris is the teen melodrama version of King Lear blended with Logan Roy, ruling his family with an iron-fist and an all-seeing eye.
There’s an overabundance of Abercrombie-esque montages, all sunkissed tans and preppy charm, set to a soundtrack of up-and-coming teen anthems, which is how we know Summer 17 is not like the others. After the mysterious events of Summer 16, Cadence returns to Beachwood with an edgy new haircut and a gap in her memory, desperate to piece together the events that led to a tragic accident the previous year — an accident that no one is willing to talk about or even acknowledge. It’s for her safety, Cadence is told, to stop any bad memories from overwhelming her newly fragile mental state. Rebelling against her family’s picture-perfect expectations, Cadence risks everything to uncover a secret more complex than she could ever have imagined.
The ensemble cast lend an appeal to the myriad tropes and plot twists. It’s always a delight to see Rahul Kohli (The Fall of the House of Usher) although it’s a shame that given the target age range here that he’s been relegated to “cool uncle”. The relative newcomers have their own potential for bigger and better things on the horizon too, Esther McGregor stepping out of her famous father Ewan’s shadow, and Joseph Zada set to tackle the role of Haymitch in the newest entry in the Hunger Games franchise, Sunrise on the Reaping. It’s a little uneven and predictable, but setting aside the turbulence of the mystery subplot, there’s a compelling level of escapism in the angsty troubles of these sun-soaked rich kids.
