Along for the Ride

Grade: B-

It must take a special kind of acting to pull off a role in a Young Adult movie. Those occupy a very specific bubble in which everything is a little bit heightened from reality. Colors are sharper (and often match), locations are at their most idyllic, and acting styles are exaggerated. You need actors who have the commitment to sustain the caricatures, but play it for real, and not take it too far. It’s a delicate balancing act, and I have more respect for them with each YA film I see. Plot points don’t aim too high when it comes to conflict. Is the hero/ine hanging with the best crowd? Does everybody like them? Do they look good at school? Will they end up with their crush? This is the highest the stakes get, and – of course – it is always treated with utmost importance, but isn’t that how we all felt in whenever “those days” were for us?

Along for the Ride, a new Netflix movie, is based on a YA novel by Sarah Dessen. Sofia Alvarez makes her directorial debut, but she has dabbled in this territory with a couple of screenwriting credits. In Along for the Ride, we follow the journey of recent high school graduate Auden, who is spending the summer with her dad, stepmother, and baby half-sister in a beach town called Colby. Auden was an honor roll student, but didn’t go to prom and otherwise wasn’t that popular. She comes across – on her nightly solo bookreading sessions on the pier – a mysterious boy named Eli, always doing fancy tricks on his bike. Eli and Auden strike up a friendship, possibly more, to the point where literally all the local townspeople are surprised and impressed that Eli, who had been reclusive for a while, is coming out of his shell to this new girl.

This is the kind of movie town where everybody knows each other and their business, so they can show up right on cue to helpfully fill in blanks about a character’s backstory. There are lines like “You’ll have to forgive me if I find it alarming how easily you’ve adapted to the world of your father’s new wife.” Colby is the most attractive, enticing, appetizing beach city I remember seeing in a movie. It looks terrific. Lots of bold primary colors, the perfect amount of wind, spot-on cinematography, and beautiful locations (or “sets,” I dunno) make it just about the coolest thing you’ll see this side of Dawson’s creek. Auden does end up making some friends, and these three girls seem to have read the screenplay, because they act like the supporting characters they are. One is never to be seen without another. They travel like an amoeba, have scheduled daily dance parties at work, and they evidently think Auden’s little office is soundproof. When she walks in and stands behind the door without even closing it, they talk about her like she’s not right there.

Relative newcomer Emma Pasarow is endearing and memorable as Auden. I hope a project like this is just a stepping stone or a springboard to better things she ought to be doing. I was delighted to see a few old pros in some adult supporting roles. Andie MacDowell is Auden’s mother, who apparently lives close enough to Colby that she can impulsively road-trip there not once, but twice that summer. Dermot Mulroney and Kate Bosworth are Auden’s dad and new trophy wife. They are able to sell the material they’re given, even if it doesn’t do them the best favors.

There’s a part of me that fosters a certain admiration or soft spot for the YA movie genre. I understand it needs to stay in its specific weird world, and I look forward to a movie like this that finds new life, heart, and originality in the midst of the limited box it occupies. I think it can happen. It almost does a few times in Along for the Ride, but never really takes off, and by the end, has settled into its typical silliness. My biggest takeaway is that I really want to go visit Colby.

Grade: B-