Warm, quirky, sweet, sentimental family drama set in 1999, about a 12-year-old girl living with her maternal grandma who is a postal worker. She had lost her teen parents at the tender age of two. The sensitive middle-grader stumbles on her deceased parents’ 80’s broken mixtape.
Mixtape! The very term is so evocative of an age long gone. A charming time when information age was still dawning, and friendships were forged in the real world.
Well, now back to the story…
She sets out to find the obscure songs listed on the mixtape’s cover, hoping to discover more about her parents, since her grandmother is reluctant to speak about them. In the process she makes friends with two of her classmates and strikes a rapport with the local music store guy.
Thus begins a bitter-sweet nostalgic ride through the last days of 90s. A period steeped in unease about y2k and a growing reliance on the internet… Askjeeves to turn to for queries, for instance.
It also highlights a phase of life that teethers between the endearing unassuming innocence of childhood and the onset of adolescence marked by a developing sense of identity and independence punctuated by intense and moody spells. Tracking each song reveals a bit about her parents’ short lives while also setting off within her a host of emotions ranging from hope and love to heartbreak and disappointment. The movie adds more meaning to the storyline and depth to the characters by giving a realistic view of the families of her two friends apart from showing her grandmother’s perspective and reasoning that drives her decisions and shapes her strict persona.
Overall, it is a pleasing, feel-good movie perfectly paced to hold one’s attention from beginning till end credits.
A.R Sara 