In August Jack and I loved this one based on director/writer Maya Forbes' own life, growing up poor with her bipolar (hence "polar bear") white father Cameron Forbes (yes, that Forbes family) and black mother Peggy, starring Maya's daughter Imogene Wolodarsky (she is amazing in her screen debut) as Maya's character, named Amelia Stuart for the story. Mark Ruffalo (last blogged for Avengers: The Age of Ultron) may be nominated for playing Cameron Stuart in a rich and layered performance. Zoe Saldana (most recently in Guardians of the Galaxy) and Ashley Aufderheide (has done a little TV since then) are also wonderful as Amelia's mother and little sister, respectively. Imogene is also a little clone of her mother, as evidenced by this photo of the four main cast members with Maya.
Maya Forbes makes her directorial debut here after writing for The Larry Sanders show and a few produced screenplays we haven't seen, co-written with her husband Wallace Wolodarsky.
The soundtrack is credited to Theodore Shapiro (last in these pages for Spy) and you can preview four of his tracks from iTunes or other pages, but I imagine the 1970s tunes will stay with you longer than his sprightly cues.
The movie was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance last year and Forbes won a Director to Watch Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Rotten Tomatoes' critics averaged 80% and its audiences 75. I suggest you see this sometime--the DVD release is estimated for January 2016.
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