Movie Review: Banana Split

Banana Split *** / *****

Directed by: Benjamin Kasulke.

Written by: Hannah Marks and Joey Power.

Starring: Hannah Marks (April), Liana Liberato (Clara), Dylan Sprouse (Nick), Luke Spencer Roberts (Ben), Meagan Kimberly Smith (Molly), Haley Ramm (Sally), Jessica Hecht (Susan), Addison Riecke (Agnes), Jacob Batalon (Jacob).

 

No one ever really knows how to navigate the summer between high school and college. In many ways, you are still a high school kid- still in your hometown, seeing the same people, working the same jobs, etc. – and this social group still feels like your entire world, with every party being a make or break time, etc. And yet, there is a time limit on it – the clock ticking down before you all go your separate ways, and even if you manage to stay friends through it all, it’s never the same again. You will never again be in that fishbowl. This is the time period Banana Split takes place in.

 

The movie focuses on April (Hannah Marks) – who we see in a rapid fire montage in the opening minutes her entire relationship with Nick (Dylan Sprouse) – which spans the last two years of high school, and runs the gamut from those first lovey dovey looks, to losing your virginity, to fighting constantly, and eventually breaking up. She is going off to college in Boston – far from L.A. where they all live, and this seems to have been the final straw – the death knell of their relationship. They are another set of high school sweethearts who didn’t make it. Except, of course, they still have these two months to get through. And Dylan finds someone very quickly to help him get through them. This is Clara (Liana Liberato) – and soon their relationship is splashed all over social media, making April jealous. And then she finally meets Clara and discovers something even worse – she really likes her. The two become quick best friends – agreeing to not let anyone else, especially Nick. They don’t talk about him much either – it’s tense when they do – so they ignore the elephant in the room for as long as they can anyway.

 

The film was co-written by Marks, who has been working as an actress since she was 12. The two other key roles are also played by former child actors – Liberato who started when she was 10 (and gave a great performance in 2010’s Trust, about a teenage girl lured to a hotel room by an internet predator) and Sprouse, who of course along with his twin brother, was a Disney channel star as a kid. They’re seasoned pros by this point – and seem to relish the chance to play at least somewhat more honest versions of teenagers than we normally see (even if none of them are teenagers anymore). Banana Split has earned some comparisons to last year’s Booksmart (although it was written and made before that film – and sat on a shelf for a while) – and you can see why. It’s another messy look at female friendship – a different kind this time though. The girls in Booksmart had been best friends for years, these two are instant besties, even if they don’t quite know enough about each other. Still, their chemistry together is real – they give the sense that teenage girls always do, that there is some sort of force field around them that keeps the rest of the world out. Both come across as tough, confident and smart – but each are masking a different set of insecurities. Sprouse isn’t given that kind of depth– at least not until near the end – but he has an easy charm about him – so you see why the girls both like him.

 

There isn’t much beyond that to the movie though. There are some decent supporting performances – both Jessica Hecht and Addison Riecke are hilarious as April’s mother and sister respectively, but there isn’t much beyond the jokes there. The films depiction of high school falls between the innocence we often see in say Disney Channel stuff that doesn’t want to acknowledge sex, drugs, drinking, etc. and the hardcore extremes of say Euphoria – meaning they probably get it basically right. It gets that feeling of this being so important, right here, right now, of those weird teenage years as well. It is all so inconsequential though – it will be looked back upon as a hazy memory one day – and it gets that right as well, even if, that ends up meaning that the movie feels even more lightweight than it already is.