As any fourth-grade teacher will tell you, kids are a direct reflection of their parents. On the other hand, it’s too simple to take all the blame or credit away from the child. “Hick,” recently released on DVD, springs from the question: What if a child had a drunk and irresponsible mother and father — would she have a fair chance of overcoming that?
Set in an indeterminate time in the recent past (the 1970s or ’80s), the film follows the unfortunately named Luli (Chloe Grace Moretz), who runs away — actually, walks away — from her Nebraska country home one morning after her mom runs off with a new boyfriend and her dad wanders off to who knows where. The parents aren’t evil, nasty people; they just don’t give much of a rip about raising a child. So Luli, despite being almost a teenager, is sort of a blank slate who suspects there must be more to life than smoky bars and boozed-up adults.
Directed by Derick Martini, “Hick” is highly stylized — which it kind of has to be with its premise — and it often doesn’t know what style it wants to be. Luli’s voiceovers and sketches give it an ever-so-slight “Napoleon Dynamite” vibe. And although some scenes get dark, as you’d expect from a story of a pre-teen girl at the mercy of strangers in the modern Wild West, it always maintains just a tinge of dark comedy.
I get the sense that Moretz doesn’t quite know how to capture the film’s tone in her acting, although she is a compelling enough presence. With her cute, cartoony face, Moretz naturally works well in stylized films, as she did as a vampire in “Let Me In” and a superhero in “Kick-Ass.”
The best performance, though, comes from Eddie Redmayne, whose character is also named Eddie. As with Moretz, he’s at the mercy of a film that doesn’t know its tone, but he nonetheless creates a sympathetic portrait of a young man with one or two loose screws. Also in the mix is “Gossip Girl’s” Blake Lively as Glenda, a drug user who fancies herself an old-fashioned belle.
Ultimately, the lesson is fairly obvious: If Luli gets some positive role models in her life, she’ll have a chance. If not, her life could spiral in just about any direction. I suspect the book by Andrea Portes is better than the film, as I imagine it gets more into Luli’s head, whereas she largely plays things by ear in the movie. (On the other hand, Portes also wrote the screenplay.)
“Hick” leaves too many interesting threads hanging, so I can’t say it’s a great movie (like the recently released “Margaret,” which also delves into human nature and people’s effects on one another). Still, just about every minute holds your attention and maintains the story’s sense that anything could happen.