Otamara Marrero, Sydney Sweeney
“CLEMENTINE” My rating: C+
90 minutes | No MPAA rating
There’s something to be said for an erotic slow burn.
“Clementine,” though, may burn too slowly for its own good.
In the wake of her shattered relationship with an older woman, Karen (Otamara Marrero, a dead ringer for a young Rosario Dawson) flees Los Angeles and breaks into the Oregon lake home owned by her one-time paramour.
Her lover (played by Sonya Walger, though for most of the film we only hear her voice in phone conversations), a well-known artist, cheated on her; that’s justification enough for the embittered Karen to smash a window and take up residence.
Her sojourn is interrupted by Lana (Sydney Sweeney), who claims to be 19 and says she lives on the other side of the lake. Lana is an enticing/plerplexing blend of teen eroticism, youthful naïveté and percolating ulterior motives. About the only thing she says that can be trusted is her intense desire to become an actress; she’s already putting on a show.
Karen is intrigued but cautious…she doesn’t believe for a moment that the babyfaced Lana is a legal adult.
Stir into the cauldron a young handyman, Beau (Will Brittain), who looks after the place in the owner’s absence. Lana flirts with him while an irritated Karen looks on. Her mood is not improved when she discovers that Beau has been sending reports back to her ex.
Written and directed by Laura Gallagher, “Clementine” (that’s not the name of a character; it’s a reference to Lana’s thing for oranges) takes its time about getting nowhere in particular.
Its lead characters are unsure of themselves and at loose ends with their lives and their futures. There’s an undeniable erotic attraction, but Karen is too principled to impose her sexual will on a person whose outward display of adult sophistication seems like a pose.
The good news is that Marrero and Sweeney are extremely watchable.
The not so good news is that when the credits rolll viewers may find themselves asking “Is that it?”
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 
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