In a big festival like SIFF, it can be hard to decide which movies to watch and it is all too easy to miss a really great film simply because you’re so very overwhelmed by your myriad of choices. In all honesty, I really hadn’t paid much notice to True Adolescents until I got a nice little note from writer/director Craig Johnson talking about how this locally-produced film is his love letter to Washington state. Since I’m definitely biased in favor of people who write nice notes as well as people who love Washington state, I decided I’d better give True Adolescents a try. I’m definitely very glad that I did. I love this movie and think that you will, too.

True Adolescents is both a comedy and a drama, a comic look at the dorky guy who doesn’t know that he really isn’t cool and also a thoughtful meditation on growing up and the complicated struggle to shed childhood for the sake of adulthood. True Adolescents makes us laugh at the guy stuck in the middle of a childhood gone so stale it’s practically a fossile but it’s never mean-spirited about it.

Lead character Sam seems like a happy-go-lucky sort. On some level he’s aware that he’s not exactly the brightest and the best, and yet, is his life that horrible, really? Oh, sure, he’s a go-nowhere wanna be edging towards never-been whose certainty that fame and fortune are just around the corner doesn’t even convince the unsophisticated teens who end up in his care. Sam spends his nights singing in a band (they play the Funhouse and the Comet and it’s neat to see those places on-screen) and his days scrounging off the goodwill of people who fall for his genial, undemanding charm even when its against their btter judgement, but he’s happy, isn’t he? Even Sam isn’t always sure of that. Mark Duplass plays Sam with a perfect mix of cocksure charisma and sad sack insecurity, expertly illustrating his childishness without alienating an audience that has to at least kind of like the guy in order to root for his success when an urgent situation demands he finally navigate the bridge from child to adult overnight.

The characters that surround Sam are strong and well-played as well. Melissa Leo is luminous as sympathetic aunt Sharon who takes Sam in yet again when grown-up life has gone over his head; even frazzled and frustrated, she manages to radiate such warm-hearted compassion that the screen fairly glows every time she’s on camera. Bret Loehr, as Sam’s cousin Oliver, and Carr Thompson, as Oliver’s best friend Jake shine in their roles, making their characters credible and likeable, even when they’re doing that whole smart-aleck teenaged boy thing. Their genuine adolescence makes Sam’s act of never growing up stand out all the more as a limited and limiting way of life; Oliver and Jake sometimes put on a jaded front, but the world still holds wonder and chance to grow for them and although they’re years and years younger than Sam, they seem so much closer to actual manhood than he does.

The settings in the film deserve special notice: the scenes in Seattle are stylish and cool and vibrant and real. The scenes outside the city show just how beautiful the countryside is up here and how amazing it is that we live in a big steel and glass city surrounded by so much beautiful green, blue, and brown. When Johnson said it’s a love letter to Washington, he’s not kidding.

Finally, the soundtrack deserves notice, too. Sam’s band, The Effort, is portrayed by local favorites The Blakes and the artists represented in the movie’s music also includes The Black Keys, The F**king Eagles, the Sonics and more. Checking out the music page gets you the whole list and links to more info on the bands.

True Adolescents screens at SIFF June 4 at 9:30 and and June 6 at 1:30 at the Egyptian.

I invited Johnson to share a bit about his movie and he was happy to oblige; click the jump read on.

Craig Johnson, writer/director of True Adolescents on his film:

Sam wasn’t directly based on one specific person, but rather a conglomeration of people–friends of mine from both Seattle and New York. I also channeled my own anxieties into the character. I wrote it as I was turning 30 and leaving film school and feeling uncertain about my future as an indie-filmmaker, just as Sam is uncertain about his future as an indie-rocker. Hopefully I don’t have my head as far up my ass as he does, though. But I know Sam is a recognizable guy in Seattle-I can’t tell you how many Seattle-ites read the script and said either “I know that guy”, “I dated that guy” or “I AM that guy”. One of the things I like most about him is he gets so stressed out being laid-back. Kind of an uptight slacker. That’s a definite Seattle characteristic.

The story really developed from the characters–or a character dynamic, really, between an adult who behaved more like a teenager and a teenager who behaved more like an adult. The very first thing I wrote was a scene of a guy and kid camping and the guy was freaking out about something and the kid was keeping his cool. That dynamic stayed, and the movie grew around it. It also became more about the character of Sam and his “coming-of-age”. I like to call it the coming-of-age of a 34 year old rocker.

When we were developing the film, I watched the Duplass Bros. film “The Puffy Chair” as an example of super lo-fi filmmaking, thinking we would be making “True Adolescents” on a similar scale. My producer, Thomas Woodrow, told me to pay attention to Mark Duplass, the lead actor, because he might be right for the role of Sam. I remember pausing the film about 20 minutes in and calling Thomas because I thought Mark Duplass was PERFECT. Turns out Thomas had met Mark before, so we were able to get in touch with him and get him the script. There was a moment when were thinking about other actors before we knew if Mark could do it, but once Mark said he was in, there was no looking back.

Working with Mark was awesome, plain and simple. He’s a filmmaker himself so he understands the directing process and as an actor he has an incredible spontaneity which fits my directing style (which is loose and actor-focused). We wanted the film to feel authentic and “true” and Mark’s performance has a natural effortless-ness that adds to that feeling.

The rest of the cast came together through casting directors in LA and a local casting effort in Seattle. We found Bret Loehr and Carr Thompson (our two teens) and Melissa Leo through Meg Mormon and Sunday Boling, our casting directors in LA. We saw a lot of teens, both in Seattle and in LA, but ultimately it came down to Bret and Carr because they both had a loose and natural vibe to them–they felt like actual 14 year old kids, rather than some weird Toothpaste Commercial version of a teen. They were also actually 14 and 15 years old, respectively, not two 20 -year olds trying to play a 14-year-old which always feels a little weird to me. And both teens got into improving and riffing off the lines with Mark–to this day some of my favorite moments in the film are spontaneous, ad-libbed bits between Mark and the boys.

Melissa Leo was a coup. We offered her the part and she agreed to do it. She brought so much more to the part than I had envisioned–she made me wish I had written a bigger part for her. And, of course, her Oscar nomination this year for “Frozen River” knocked us out.

I want to say too that I LOVE our hippies, Linas Phillips and Davie-Blue. Linas and Davie-Blue we found in Seattle. They knew each other and immediately when I saw them together, their tone-perfect art-hippie spaciness blew my mind. Linas is great documentary filmmaker by the way–he made the doc “Walking To Werner” which everyone should see.

From the beginning, this story was rooted in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest. I grew up in Bellingham, went to college at UW and lived in Seattle for 8 years. I definitely wanted to capture the “vibe” of Seattle and Washington, however you define that–the music scene, the ex-hippies who are now single moms in the suburbs, the contrast between the cramped bars and the expanse of nature which is a few hours away, the mysterious beauty of the Olympic Peninsula. I wanted it to feel real and tried not to stretch things too much. Though I’m sure some locals will say “hey! that’s not really the interior of Cafe Vita!” We cheat things a little here and there.

Obviously music is crucial to the film. We hooked up early on with our music supervisor, Sandy Wilson, who works for local record label Light In the Attic. I knew I wanted to cast an actual local band as “The Effort” and Sandy got us in touch with The Blakes. My God, I remember meeting them at The Twilight Exit and it was like meeting the Stones circa 1966. I felt like the biggest nerd on planet Earth. They were awesome, and totally up for being in the film. I gave Snow Keim a few lines and he’s an amazing, natural actor! If the band thing doesn’t work out he should go to Hollywood. Many of the bands on the soundtrack are local, up-and-coming acts: Mono In VCF, Wallpaper, The F**king Eagles, Hazelwood Motel, to name a few. A lot of them are friends of Sandy. He knows everyone in the Seattle music scene. I think having these bands–in addition to some local throwbacks like “The Sonics”–makes the musical world feel more authentic to the actual Seattle scene, Though “authenticity” is a tough thing to come by in the rock world, I think we kicked ass in the music department.

After SIFF, we’ll be screening at a few other festivals and then our hope is to set up distribution this summer. We premiered in March at SXSW and had a incredible reception. A lot of companies are interested in the film and we’re feeling optimistic about distribution.