Lynn Shelton is a curious, Pacific Northwest-bred hybrid of high-concept and low production value.
She has made a specialty out of deconstructing sitcom-y setups: two pals trying to follow through on a dare to make a gay porno (“Humpday”); a man betwixt two interested sisters, one of them a lesbian, in a remote cabin (“Your Sister’s Sister”).
Instead of heightening the broad potential of such stories, she plays them naturally, usually with improvised dialogue and an unstylized, microbudget intimacy.
She’s something like the movies’ answer to the organic food movement: a farm-fresh producer of comfort food.
In “Laggies,” Shelton has brought her light, heartfelt touch to her most familiar, movie-ready plot—a version of the back-to-school comedy rendered not with Rodney Dangerfield antics but the soul-searching of a directionless 28-year-old Seattleite (Keira Knightley).
Megan has spent her post-high school life procrastinating and earning a graduate degree in marriage and family therapy (“because I wanted to have honest conversations with people,” she says) that she hasn’t put to use, unable to relate to her clients.
She lives with her cloyingly sweet high-school boyfriend (Mark Webber) and does odd jobs for her father (Jeff Garlin), like spinning signs to advertise his accounting business. When her careerist, bridezilla friend (Ellie Kemper) gets married and her own boyfriend proposes, Megan’s arrested development turns into a crisis.
On a run to the grocery store, she meets 16-year-old Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz), who gets her to buy beer for her friends. They hit it off partly because their maturity level is about equal. Instead of going to the self-help seminar her boyfriend thinks she’s attending, Megan crashes with Annika, becoming enmeshed in her group of teenage friends and attending high-school parties.
