I saw the film at its premiere at the Sonoma International Film Festival, and I thought it was wonderful. Willa Holland's performance was both subtle and powerful, showing an incredible amount of pent-up anger, frustration, and sadness that truly moved me. I have never read the book (or any Judy Blume novel,) so I was surprised by the film's depth and gentle handling of a very tough subject (the loss of a parent.) The film isn't your typical tale of teen angst and longings - it's a dark and subtle character drama. The film is also incredibly well-shot (mild spoiler - my personal favorite was during a scene where the mother is singing Christmas carols with her new friends, where Davey is watching from the hallway, framed by party guests in this very contrasted light that just reinforces her character's intensity in that moment.)

All-in-all I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and I hope that it finds a distributor who not only cares enough to give the film a good release, but also doesn't screw up the marketing by making the film out to be something it's not.

Davey Wexler (Willa Holland) is struggling after her father was killed. Her mother Gwen (Amy Jo Johnson) has withdrawn. She, her mother and little brother Jason move from Atlantic City to New Mexico to stay with Gwen's older sister Bitsy Kronick (Cynthia Stevenson) and her husband Walter. At the new school, she's befriended by partygirl Jane Albertson (Elise Eberle). While walking alone in a canyon, she is found by native American Wolf who connects with her. She tells him her name is Tiger.

This movie is based on Judy Blume's novel directed by her son Lawrence Blume. It's a teen girl struggling with some difficult issues. The difficulties are large and varied. It's a bit scattered. Willa Holland is quite effective holding the film together. Her performance adds the sensitivity needed although I'm not sure the material is used to its most effectiveness.

Tiger Eyes, a young adult book written by Judy Blume in 1981 and the first of her movies to be brought to the big screen, is about a young girl trying to cope with the murder of her father. Her son, Lawrence Blume wrote the screen play and directed the film. Willia Holland stars as Davey and Tatanka Means stars as Wolf, the young man who who helps Davey find strength from loss.

Despite the Boston International Film Festival playing an unfinished version of the film that lacked surround sound and the rich deep and moody color the directer intended, the movie was lushly filmed and used the landscape surrounding Los Almos New Mexico as a silent-yet-powerful character in the film.

What is rendered on the screen is a spare yet moving meditation on the solitude of grief and the redemptive power of connection. The film holds a few masterful moments that telegraph to our hearts and minds the experience of grief. Close to the beginning of the movie we are presented with a character's wish to rise up in a hot air balloon and never come down. Shortly thereafter Davey is alone, cradled by a New Mexico canyon, and calls out for her now dead father. The aloneness an isolation of death and loss are hauntingly personified in these two scenes.

The separation and isolation build in the movie and come to a sharp point before pivoting in a Native American ceremony with Wolf (Tatanka Means) and his father Willie Ortiz (Russell Means, Tatanka's real-life father). The ceremony teaches us that no one is left alone in this universe and that it is vital that we are not alone as we are social beings. Wolf's father says "if a person feels disconnected, he or she might fail." The movie starts to unwind itself and carry us to the ending as relationships move from contraction to expansion toward an emotionally satisfying ending. No one fails.

Blume's books are dense. She packs in many different facets of the young adult experience. The movie adaptation of Tiger Eyes is no different. In 92 minutes we are exposed to death, grief, teen drinking, teen relationships and dating, rebellion, angst, and more. I found myself wishing for a simpler more spare story line. The other issues presented in the movie, while important and well done, distracted me from the elegant beauty of relationships lost and found.

I think, perhaps, my wish of a more spare movie reflects my more adult tastes. I got to thinking about how young adults interact with media-- short bits of information. I wonder if that was Lawrence Blume's intention of the movie--to present short bits of information to a young adult audience in their own language. If that's the case, it was pure genius.

more: http://irreverentpsychologist.blogspot.com/2012/04/relationships- lost-and-found-tiger-eyes.html