Innocent Teenager In Trouble Through Out Of This World Rebellion
Like many 17-year-old, Maude (Clara Mamet) is a rebel. She has no sense of directions, she is too innocent and has a naive personality. Her days starts badly, smoking and drinking first thing in the morning. She insinuates that Anne Frank fabricated all the entries in “The Diary of a Young Girl,” and is suspended from school.
Sent to detention for her tactless remarks and bad reputation in school, Maude is rejected by her best friend and the boy who recently took her virginity.
Fortunately for Maude, she gets a shot at redemption, after her grandmother, played by Willow Hale, dies unexpectedly. Maude learns that her grandmother left her millions, but on condition that she turn her life around and attend college. At the reading of the will, the inveterate iconoclast informs the estate attorney, played by David Paymer, that she has zero interest in the huge inheritance, because her hobby is suicide.
That shocking revelation lands the young lady on a therapist’s couch. She tells the shrink, played by John Pirruccello, “I had self-respect once, but I put it in the ironing cupoard and it never seemed to turn up again.” Then Maude doubles down on her desire to die.
Will morose Maude come out of the self-destructive, death spiral before it’s too late? That is the question at the heart of Two-Bit Waltz, an adventure marked by a quirkiness reminiscent of Wes Anderson as well as by an irreverence reminiscent of Sarah Silverman.
Clara Mamet is a rising star, who makes a memorable writing and directorial debut here, in a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age tale where she also plays the protagonist, a troubled teen struggling to find her place in the world.
Despite being the daughter of writer/director David Mamet and actress Rebecca Pidgeon, Clara has, to her credit, managed to craft a fine first film free of obvious parental influences.
It is a delightfully-droll, dysfunctional family dramedy!
Two-Bit Waltz
Excellent (4 stars)
Rated R for profanity and a sexual reference Running time: 81 minutes
Distributor: Monterey Media
Watch the Two-Bit Waltz trailer:
