As You Are

As You Are

For teenagers, finding a new best friend is like falling in love for the first time; it’s exciting and everything seems to matter more than it did before. When someone connects with another person on such an intimate level where they understand them completely can be mind altering; especially when you’re still figuring out yourself.

With his confident feature debut “As You Are,” director/co-writer Miles Joris-Peyrafitte captures that feeling in ways both haunting and dreamlike. He shows the kind of confidence and talent at 24 that most directors don’t achieve in their entire careers, let alone right out of the gate. His eye for imagery is artful and his ear for dialogue true; he’s clearly studied the greats.

Joris-Peyrafitte establishes a fascinating duality of mood from the very beginning the push-pull between the awe of discovery and the dread of reality. We know from frame one that something terrible has happened, but getting there provides a journey of joy and heartache, mystery and melancholy. (The echoes of Gus Van Sant are many, visually and thematically but again, that’s not a bad thing.)

“As You Are” jumps around in time between the events that bring together three dissimilar high school students and the police investigation into the tragedy that drives them apart. Videotaped interviews with an unseen detective, conducted “Rashomon”-style provide various perspectives into these kids’ relationship as well as their own reluctant memories about where things went wrong.

Lonely Jack (Owen Campbell of “The Americans”) wanders through school hallways during his free periods, skateboarding or watching TV by himself in otherwise empty rooms. He lives in a modest house in a middle-class neighborhood on the outskirts of Albany, N.Y., with his single mom Karen (Mary Stuart Masterson yes, she plays angsty high school moms now if you feel like feeling old). Joris Peyrafitte creates a strong sense of place, and Jack’s isolation within it is palpable and yet when he smiles at his mom, a sweetness flickers in him that’s almost boyish.

Things start to look up when Karen introduces Jack to her new boyfriend Tom (Scott Cohen) and his teenage son Mark (Charlie Heaton of “Stranger Things,” who looks uncannily like peak River Phoenix who probably would have played this role himself if the movie had been made in its early-’90s setting). The new kid in town, Mark is everything Jack isn’t: talkative, brash, dangerous.

Their initial friendship born out of proximity soon becomes a surrogate siblinghood when Tom and Mark move into Karen and Jack’s already cramped house; the way Jack frantically tidies up his room and tries to make it look as cool as possible is a nice touch (and tells us so much about him at this stage), wanting Mark to be impressed with his record collection as if it were their first date.

Then a third friend enters the picture: beautiful, self-assured Sarah (Amandla Stenberg of “The Hunger Games”), who alters their shifting dynamic in profound and subtle ways for better and worse. The three spend afternoons skipping school together, smoking pot in the park and lazily debating what shapes they see in the clouds. Then one day, Mark’s dad takes them all out to the woods with his cache of handguns and teaches them how to shoot at targets. This will not end well.

It’s nice for a while, though. Slow motion is used by Joris Peyrafitte in an evocative way to freeze a moment and the feeling that goes with it. The cameras are also always on point; there are some really impressive long tracking shots, aspect ratios you wouldn’t have thought of and clever angles particularly during a game of Spin the Bottle. He knows when to show off and he knows when to be still, especially in those lovely, emotionally true scenes between Campbell and Heaton.

But whatever sense of hope “As You Are” may offer, we know something has shattered this teenage paradise so it’s always tinged with tension. (By the way: The title nods at Nirvana’s “Come As You Are,” with Kurt Cobain as patron saint to these music-obsessed, frustrated kids.)

For the most part, Joris Peyrafitte and co-writer Madison Harrison have created sharply drawn characters for their well chosen cast but not all of them. Cohen, as Mark’s dad, is a one dimensional abusive blowhard. And while the actual act that destroys this tender friendship might feel somewhat anti-climactic, you’ve been holding your breath during those more delicate moments leading up to it so as not to break them. It’s an exciting debut from an extremely promising young filmmaker.

Watch As You Are For Free On Gomovies.