Available May 22 via Virtual Screening Room
Twenty-somethings Mara and Jo have been close friends since middle school. Jo, the more outgoing figure, is a social worker who runs through a series of brief but intense relationships. Mara, a less splashy personality than Jo, bounces among teacher aide jobs while trying to land a position in elementary education, and writes fiction in her spare time. She too has a transient romantic life, though she seems to settle down after meeting Adam, a mild-mannered software developer. It soon becomes apparent that Jo, despite her intellectual gifts, is unreliable in her professional life, losing and acquiring jobs at a troubling rate. Substance abuse may be responsible for Jo’s instability, but some observers suspect a deeper problem. Over the course of a decade, the more stable Mara sometimes tries to help, sometimes backs away to preserve herself, but never leaves behind her powerful childhood connection with Jo.
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“Denying the satisfaction of grand expressions or gestures, Sallitt instead uses time to show the changes in Jo and Mara’s relationship.” — Teo Bugbee, New York Times
“What I love about the film, among other aspects, is how the wry verbal wit of the early conversations suggests a mordant comedy, almost a working-class variation on the films of Whit Stillman.” — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
“Life is a series of accumulations, and Fourteen is smart about how friendships can, in a strange way, deepen even as they dissolve.” — Jesse Hassenger, AV Club
Dan Sallitt
Dan Sallitt (Writer)
Tallie Medel, Norma Kuhling, Lorelei Romani, C. Mason Wells