Always, Lola

I don't know if this review will be helpful to anybody interested in this movie, as I don't think I can adequately explore its themes and complexities without bringing up some personal information that doesn't really belong in a movie review. Always, Lola is about the aftermath felt by a circle of friends who were a circle because of one person, and that person is no longer there. What happens to those bonds when the cornerstone falls out? What secrets did that person hide from one friend or another? What kind of impact, positive and negative, did they have on the group? And how do they move forward, individually and as a group? Always, Lola is best experienced as blindly as possible, experiencing the movie's developments in real time with the characters, so I'm being purposefully obtuse, but it's for your benefit, because it's worth it. What I am willing to say is that there are a number of elements -- the way it touches on a specific kind of grief, the dynamic between twins when the two siblings are drastically different, someone who embodies and romanticizes the idea of "it's better to burn out than to fade away" -- that hit painfully close to home for me. And for the characters I don't have a connection to based on personal experience, Always, Lola's writing and direction do a fantastic job of relaying how they're feeling. They make mistakes, relationships get messy, they learn about each other and themselves, and it all feels uncomfortably authentic. This is backed up by a tiny post-credit sequence showing that the writer/director knows what he's talking about. This is not a movie you'll have a great time with. If you've experienced any of the things that happen in this movie, it'll cut you to the bone. It's probably not the kind of movie you'll want to watch over and over again, but then again (I'm torn between wanting to watch this with my family and not wanting to put myself through it again), maybe you will for the catharsis of it. I have to believe, based on that post-credit moment, that it was cathartic for writer/director Jeffrey Crane Graham, and this was his way of trying to turn the negative that inspired this movie into a positive, for himself and hopefully for someone else. This is a movie I will never forget, and am so glad I stumbled upon it.