Love That Boy
| Love That Boy | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Andrea Dorfman |
| Produced by | Jan Nathanson |
| Written by |
Jennifer Deyell Andrea Dorfman |
| Starring |
Nadia Litz Adrien Dixon PJ Crosby Nikki Barnett Ellen Page |
| Cinematography | Tom Harding |
| Edited by | Michael Vernon |
| Distributed by | Mongrel Media |
|
Release date
|
September 19, 2003 |
|
Running time
|
85 minutes |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
Love That Boy is a 2003 Canadian film and romantic comedy directed by Andrea Dorfman and starring Nadia Litz and Adrien Dixon. It is about a woman in love with a younger teenage boy. In French the film is called J'aime ce garçon.
Phoebe (Nadia Litz) is a perky type-A university student who has difficulty relating to her fellow students. Her only friend is her roommate Robin (Nikki Barnett) who she smothers with advice. Eventually Robin cracks under the pressure of being Phoebe's only friend and leaves on a plane with a stranger she just met, informing Phoebe that she is too uptight and immature, casually mentioning that she's never even had a boyfriend.
Embarrassed by her own immaturity Phoebe tries to go on a date. After it goes sour she ends up talking to Frazer, her 14-year-old neighbour who mows her lawn. As time passes, Phoebe grows close to Frazer as he enjoys listening to her advice and looks up to and respects her while at the same time teaching her to have fun and relax. However their friendship begins to strain when Robin returns and notices that Phoebe is spending lots of time with Frazer and has crossed getting a boyfriend off her task list. Meanwhile, Suzanna (Ellen Page), Frazer's neighbour, grows jealous of all the time he spends with Phoebe and tells him that Phoebe will want to have sex with him in an effort to scare him. Instead Frazer buys condoms and later attempts to kiss Phoebe. Disturbed, Phoebe brushes him off and pushes him away.
On her way to graduation Frazer approaches Phoebe to talk. She ends up kissing him in front of Robin and her friends but the two realize the age difference between them is too large for anything romantic to happen. Instead, they go to Phoebe's graduation ceremony as friends.
Love That Boy was filmed in Halifax, Nova Scotia. One critic speculated the budget was low, but that that was used as an advantage, saying a "slightly cheesy look and sound of everything in Phoebe's life... justifies good old Canuck cheapness as a point of comedy."
Director Andrea Dorfman told the press that in her work, she tried to adapt reality with character-based style, and would "look at things from a different perspective." Dorfman co-wrote the screenplay, placing the character Phoebe in university because Dorfman saw herself as overconfident of her knowledge when she went to college. The point would then be to demonstrate that studying is not complete knowledge. Dorfman also claims that the low budget was because larger companies would want to change the story so that Frazer and Phoebe become lovers, while the actual points of the film were reaching maturity and friendship.
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