Rob Reiner’s “Flipped,” based on the novel by Wendelin Van Draanen, is an all-around likeable film, a sweet, nostalgic, and reliable coming of age story about first loves and family dramas. It could even be described as a romantic comedy, even if the leads are really too young to know anything about romance. Do you remember how, as kids, you would talk about how you liked someone, and not just liked them, but really liked them, you know, as more than a friend? That’s the kind of innocence this movie brings to mind, which I guess is fitting since it mostly takes place in the early 1960s. The plot is perhaps a bit conventional, but it’s also undeniably charming, and it features two strong leads who, although young, competently navigate their way through the screenplay, even when it falls victim to sentimental contrivances.
 
The story is about a boy named Bryce Loski and a girl named Julianna Baker, who first met in 1957 when they were only seven years old. Julianna, or Juli (Morgan Lily), bursting with energy and enthusiasm, immediately fell for Bryce (Ryan Ketzner) – or, at the very least, developed what can only be described as a puppy-love crush. Bryce, being only seven, had absolutely no interest in girls, and found her affections frightening. He spent every waking moment trying to avoid her, made impossible by the fact that they live across the street from each other and attended the same school.
 
Flash forward six years to the story proper. A now thirteen-year-old Bryce (Callan McAuliffe) has successfully kept Juli (Madeline Carroll) at a distance, although he keeps bumping into her, and she persists in being outgoing and affectionate. Then things start to change. Juli, who enjoyed climbing a towering sycamore tree and admiring the view, is crushed when developers cut it down, and she feels betrayed when Bryce fails to offer her support. She had been giving Bryce’s family boxes of eggs from her own backyard hens, only to discover that Bryce had been throwing them away. Her backyard, he reasons, is filthy and could be breeding salmonella. She angrily tells him that she could have sold those eggs to other neighbors, who have always been willing to pay her for them. Maybe Bryce isn’t who she thought he was. Maybe she should just forget about him altogether. The thing is, Bryce is starting to tolerate her. Why, he might even actually like her. He’s flipped!

She finds solace in Bryce’s grandfather, Chet (John Mahoney), who now lives with Bryce and his family. He likes Juli because of her “iron backbone,” which reminds him of his recently deceased wife. She, in turn, likes him, probably because he’s the only Loski that doesn’t look down on her family. In this middle-American, middle class neighborhood, the Bakers are easy targets; her father, a painter (Aidan Quinn), gives every cent he earns to the hospital caring for his mentally retarded brother, David (Kevin Weisman), meaning his wife (Penelope Ann Miller) has to find temporary work just to make ends meet. Bryce’s father, Steven (Anthony Edwards), is especially judgmental, although it’s for reasons left a little obscure, save for a vague and passing reference to an unfulfilled life.
 
The story is structured as a He-Said, She-Said, Bryce narrating scenes from his point of view before the same scenes are replayed and narrated from Juli’s point of view. Not surprisingly, they think along very different lines. Bryce’s mind is relentlessly one-tracked, always stuck on how he should avoid Juli, how he should approach Juli, or how he should apologize to Juli. The one line that’s repeated like a mantra is, “I couldn’t stop thinking about Juli.” Perhaps he wouldn’t be on this psychological treadmill if he actually bothered to consider her feelings. Compare this with Juli, who’s far more introspective. She tries to see people for who they really are and not for how they present themselves. Now that she’s a teenager, Bryce is more of an attractive curiosity, a mystery that she wants to solve. But can he be figured out? Or is there truly nothing behind those eyes she loves to look into?
 
While lacking the drama and complexity of Reiner’s earlier coming of age period film, “Stand by Me,” “Flipped” is still a warm, caring, resonant film, taking the conventions of today’s romantic comedies and successfully reworking them for a more adolescent audience. The cast is pleasant, especially the young leads. McAuliffe in particular is surprising, at age fifteen already in command of a flawless American accent (he’s Australian). That being said, it’s doubtful that “Flipped” will ever be mentioned in the same sentence as Reiner’s most memorable films, including “This is Spinal Tap,” “The Princess Bride,” “Misery,” and “When Harry Met Sally...” Oh, it gets the job done nicely, and it’s worth seeing, but don’t expect to be quoting lines from it twenty years from now.

- Chris Pandolfi

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