By Carmen Cernuda
This movie has been through a very special journey with the film festival. It was first going to be shown during the Miami Film Festival 2017 as Billy Boy but it got cancelled; after changing the name and the linear timeline of the movie in the editing room (more on this later), Blake Jenner, the writer, and star of the movie, decided it was time to let it free and share it with the public.
Juvenile, or soon to be known officially as Billy Boy, follows the story of a troubled high school kid that makes very bad choices until he meets a very special woman, played by Melissa Benoist (Glee, Supergirl) who convinces him to stop messing around. The story is told in a very unconventional way, which at first had me confused but I caught up on it. They present us a situation, and while we are advancing through that timeline, they take us back to give us the backstory of the characters in different times of their lives, in no particular order.
The different color temperature in the flashback scenes helped a lot to make us realize that this had already happened, though they didn’t follow that color pattern with every flashback and those were harder to catch up on . Overall, the movie really achieved what I think was the purpose, and that is feeling the main character’s pain and struggle.
During the Q and A, Jenner was asked an interesting question: “How much did growing up Miami influence this movie?”, of course, he laughed a little and said “A lot, we actually don’t have a close up on it but there is scene with a plate of arroz con pollo…”, with a laugh and applause, the host, Jaie Laplante, director of the festival, said goodbye to Jenner and the two producers that accompanied him. Juvenile will be out in theatres under the name of Billy Boy in June.
MIAMI FILM FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE 