“Palm Trees and Power Lines”

Movie Review

Based on her 2018 short film of the same name, Jamie Dack's 2022 American coming-of-age drama Palm Trees and Power Lines marks her feature directorial debut. Dack's story served as the basis for the screenplay She and Audrey Findlay wrote. Lily McInerny plays a disengaged teenage girl who enters a relationship with a man twice her age in the movie. Gretchen Mol and Jonathan Tucker are featured as well.

The movie had its world premiere on January 24, 2022, at the 38th Sundance Film Festival, where Dack received the U.S. Dramatic Competition Directing Award. Critics gave the movie high marks, and it was nominated for four 38th Independent Spirit Awards categories, including Best First Feature.

Lea, a 17-year-old girl, has been hanging out with her best friend Amber for the past few weeks of the summer. Sandra, her single mother, and she shares a suburban Southern California home together. Lea's father has moved to Arizona with his new family and is not a part of her life. Lea has a causal connection with one of the boys Lea and Amber hang out with, named Jared. Lea, on the other hand, finds their encounters to be unsatisfying because Jared only appreciates her for sex.

Lea establishes eye contact with an older man seated at a different table as the group of friends eats at a restaurant one night, and he winks at her as he leaves. Lea hesitates to follow her friends as they leave to pay the bill, so she is left behind. When Lea tries to leave, a cook approaches her, but the same man from earlier steps in to stop him, allowing Lea to escape. The older man drives his car beside her as she makes her way home, enticing her to get in. The person introduces himself as Tom and states that Lea and he both share the age of 34. He enters his cell phone number before she exits the vehicle.

Lea, who finds Tom to be charming, tells Amber that she has met someone, but withholds further information and merely identifies him as a boy from another school. As her mother invites an ex-boyfriend back to their home, Lea's relationship with her mother becomes even more strained. Lea goes to Tom for attention and approval, and he shows empathy for her troubles by admitting that he doesn't have a close relationship with his father either.

Tom and Lea get romantically involved very quickly. He takes her to a motel when she agrees to spend the night with him, explaining that he is only staying there temporarily while looking for a new place. As Tom had to leave the room to deal with something, Lea notices something is off, despite his insistence to her that he was simply helping one of his neighbors. Lea is spotted by a friend from school as Tom and Lea are out having fun at the beach, and Tom introduces himself to her. Lea agrees not to disclose their relationship to anybody after Amber receives word of it. Lea is my, so Tom also asks her not to see any other men.

The waitress at the restaurant where Lea and Tom were dining believes Lea is involved in a controlling relationship. The waitress subtly informs Lea that she may assist her if she has to leave when Tom goes outside to make a phone call. Lea wonders why she would need help, confused and ignorant that Tom is grooming her, and the waitress reveals that Tom frequently visits the restaurant with other young girls. Lea is uneasy when Tom comes back, so he coaxes her into talking about what's bothering her. He plays it off and says she must have thought he was someone else when she confesses that the waitress had said she had seen him before with other girls.

Jared makes fun of Lea later on, while she is out with friends drinking and smoking, by saying that she has been seen "hanging out with the geriatric." Lea rushes off and then appears sad in Tom's motel room, upset that Amber is the one who notified Jared. Tom reassures her that her friends and family’s opinions don’t matter. He also gives her a bracelet that is engraved with a joke they both know. Lea readily accepts his invitation to go somewhere with him, and the two proceed to a hotel. Tom sits Lea down and asks her if she can help him on their second night in the hotel. He claims that if she loves him, she will do it for him even though she must have sex with another man in order to get money. He forces her into prostitution and then abandons her with an older man. Lea is persuaded to engage in oral and anal sex by the unidentified man. Tom catches Lea in an embrace before she can leave the hotel as she packs her things and exits the room as the man is in the shower.

He brings her to a restaurant to eat supper, but Lea decides to leave him by using the need to use the restroom as an excuse to go to a nearby gas station on her own. She sobs as she asks Amber to come get her, and when she does, the two make up. At home, Lea makes an attempt to spend more time with her mother and returns to her customary activities with Amber. Lea tries to call Tom but finds that his mobile lines are disconnected after Amber compliments her jewelry. She goes to the motel and knocks on his door, but it goes unanswered. She asks a neighbor she had seen before chatting to Tom about his location, and the woman hesitantly dials his number and connects her to Tom. Lea begs Tom to return to her over the phone as she sobs inconsolably. Her feelings for him are confirmed by the movie's conclusion.

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