MOVIE REVIEW
Dear Lemon Lima, (2009)
The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival
Every hit film spawns a few imitators. For
your setting, pick a location not frequently shown in movies. Make your lead
character peripherally involved in high-school politics. Give them some friends
who want nothing more to help further them in their goal. There’s some amusing
attempts at physical activity, and broad comedy at the expense of the actors of
color. Work in an emotional dance scene. Oh, and don’t forget the repeated
drawings on lined paper, frequent use of sign language and even references to
tater tots.
In other words, first-time writer-director
Suzi Yoonessi’s “Dear Lemon Lima,” is “Napoleon Dynamite” for girls. Vanessa
(Savanah Wiltfong) lives in Alaska with her single mother (Eleanor Hutchins).
Her absent father is Yup’ik, which qualifies her for a scholarship to the
private school attended by her on/off boyfriend Philip (Shayne Topp,
alternating his Tom Cruise and Owen Wilson impressions) where she meets a group
of equally misfit kids. One of them, Hercule (Zane Huett of “Desperate
Housewives”), is her next door neighbor whom she has somehow never met. When she
learns the other cliques call the kids like her “FUBARs,” Vanessa is outraged;
when she learns what that means, she is incandescent. The only way to show them
is to put together a team to triumph in the annual winter sports competition.
