Yesterday, I caught the opening of Little Birds at Angelika Film Center. Little Birds is one of those indie films that is admirably gritty and realistic without being terribly interesting or deep. I’m not saying it’s not a good story or that it’s not enjoyable. I think it is worth seeing. But it’s somewhat limited by the approach it takes to its material.

Juno Temple and Kay Panabaker play two hopeless teenagers living in a trailer park at the edge of the known world; seriously, the locations filmed in this movie are reminiscent of Antonioni’s Red Desert, that’s how bleak and otherworldly they seem. The girls wander around horrifically barren and God-forsaken landscapes, and then return each evening to their highly dysfunctional and unpleasant homes. Eventually, they meet a bunch of skateboard losers from LA, plying their trade in an abandoned pool, and so bleak are the girl’s lives they decide to follow them back to LA, where lots of things happen.

It’s a nice little story, but it is held back by that old bete noir: lack of dialog. They paint a reasonable enough picture (could have been done better) of the girls’ hopeless lives to make their journey seem plausible, but when they get to LA they simply ramp up the bleakness without exploring anything at all. Neither girl’s character is very well developed, they don’t really talk to each other once in LA, and they don’t really talk to the boys either. Thus the story degenerates into the sentiment: “God, I hope nothing bad happens to them!” Which is not a terrible thing, it’s just to say that this film is not trying to make any grander statement about life, friendship or growing up. The film does have some nice images in it, but these are offset by a heavy-handed and unappealing score.

It is nice to see that Kay Panabaker has recovered from her painful role in the execrable remake of Fame from a few years ago. Panabaker has a lovely and warm image on screen, while also being able to pass for “ugly;” thus she has a near perfect presence to play the sensible and repressed but emotionally appealing best friend in duos like the one in this film. Her acting is a tad stiff in places, but I’m nitpicking, and anyway, playing opposite Juno Temple basically fixes any small problems in her performance. Panabaker brings a really nice energy and realism to her role.

Juno Temple continues to amaze. She is incredibly natural, emotionally flexible, has wonderful control of her facial expressions, and breathes freshness into every scene. I just hope she avoids being pigeonholed into roles like this (crazy blond chick on a downward spiral,) as I think she has way more in her. This role is a bit beneath her, truth be told.

The three guys are all solid and seemed very real to me, especially the “smart” leader of the group, who reminded me of many such evil characters from my abominable years as a teenager. Even the guys playing the pervs were really good.

Little Birds is a solid and enjoyable little film. I have no idea how wide its release is (Angelika is probably the only place in America it’s playing,) but you can always Netflix it when it finally comes to DVD.