Electrick Children

Rock n’ Roll’s supernatural powers are taken to extreme heights in Electrick Children. The concept of immaculate conception via a mixtape sounds laughable on paper, but director/writer Rebecca Thomas finds a way to make it work thanks in part to endearingly witty dialogue and a stellar cast.

            Rachel, a 15 year-old Mormon girl who is supposedly with child, is played with the perfect combination of naivete and charm by Julia Garner. Her cuteness peaks during the night of her fifteenth birthday when she sings and dances along to The Nerves’ “Hangin’ On The Telephone,” which she believes got her pregnant. Aw…

            With the face and wardrobe of a China doll, Rachel is a literal personification of innocence. Her quest to find “the man who sings on the tape” leads her to Las Vegas; a setting that provides a sharp contrast to everything that her character embodies. Among her many sinful discoveries, her first attempt at using a cellular phone is definitely a highlight.

            Garner’s comedic timing and steady delivery of lines like “Cool. That’s what you say right? Cool?” come with surprising ease for an inexperienced actress who was almost totally unknown before Children.

The local band of misfits that she and her brother, Mr. Will (Liam Aiken), end up befriending help to create endless amounts of humorous interactions as both parties discover how the other half lives. Needless to say, Rachel and Mr. Will didn’t last too long in their first game of “Never Have I Ever.”

Speaking of Mr. Will, Rachel’s brother is “the voice of reason” throughout the film as Rachel begins to “rebel.” I use that term in the lightest way possible. Think of rebellion in the vein of listening to music, talking to boys and almost anything that seems normal for a teenage girl.

Mr. Will was forced to leave home because wrongful accusations were made that he was the father of his sister’s child, so he has no real desire to conspire with her on her journey except to get her to confess her sins on the tape recorder. Just in case you forget their strict Mormon background, he reminds you every step of the way through constant disapproval.

Though he is the epitome of Mormon discipline, Mr. Will allows himself a vice in the form of skateboarding. Aiken’s best performance comes when Mr. Will has to take painkillers after breaking his arm in a skateboarding accident. Accurately playing someone who is drunk or high is one of the harder elements of the acting game, but Aiken had no problem handling it.

Rachel thinks she has found the father of her child in one of the locals they befriend named Johnny, but soon realizes after hearing his band play - “I don’t even know if you can call it music” – that he is not the one. As a character, he is a non-event, but her temporary interest in him leads her to Clyde, a snarky member of the group who is played without fault by Rory Culkin.

            Culkin brings a nice warmth to a character that could have been very easy to hate. He got kicked out of his house for shooting his stepmom’s dog; though he said it didn’t die…bro.

Even after he reveals that little gem, Clyde’s consistent kindness towards Rachel and hidden charm gradually grow on you; which is a testament to Culkin’s performance. Creating a redeeming character from tales of animal abuse and lines like “She wants to have my babies” is no small feat.

The relationship between Culkin’s Clyde and Garner’s Rachel evolves and develops quite quickly and brings out the best in both characters. Clyde softens up and Rachel gets a small dose of reality. The two even agree to get married in case things don’t work out with “the man that sings on the tape.”

Here’s a shocker; things don’t pan out as planned. The man on the tape ends up being her actual father, not the father of her child or the preacher in her strict Mormon community whom she believed was her father. With this disappointment, however, Rachel realizes that she needs to stop looking for the father. The kid grows up…a little.

After it becomes clear there is probably no earthly father, Clyde rescues a very willing Rachel from an arranged shotgun wedding in the Mormon community and the two sail off into paradise. And by paradise I mean living in a tent by the ocean.

In one fell swoop she committed the ultimate form of rebellion by leaving her own wedding and he committed the ultimate form of genuine devotion by agreeing to marry her without any prospect of a future other than a mixtape baby on the way. A baby that, much to my dismay, the audience never even gets to see.