The Exploding Girl

An image of shimmering green: a girl asleep in front of a window. A car. A drive. College student Ivy is going home to New York for the summer break. Her face, her hands. Her childhood friend, Al, is with her. Deep blue eyes, red hair, countless freckles. A New York summer. Ivy and Al wander through the city. They go to a party. Ivy’s boyfriend Greg is just a voice on the telephone and sometimes not even that. The line seems to break down all the time. Until he tells her that it would be better if they didn’t see each other anymore. Ivy doesn’t say anything and she doesn’t tell anyone – neither Al, nor her mother – that Greg broke up with her. She gets drunk but still doesn’t realize that it is Al she loves. Only when he shows her a nest with newly hatched pidgeons on one of the roofs does she let go and cry and lean on his shoulder, while a flock of birds soars up around them to criss-cross the blue sky against the sunset. On the way back to college Ivy’s and Al’s hands touch ever so lightly until they finally lock and hold each other. This film is both a love story and a study of friendship – unpretentious, poetic and seemingly effortless, not unlike the feathers almost weightlessly whirling through the air in the closing credits.