LOL (2012)

Movie Review: «LOL».

English Title: LOL: Laughing Out Loud.
Production: USA, 2012.
Release Date: 10.02.2012 (India), 04.05.2012 (USA).
Russian Distributor: Volga (28.06.2012).
Official Website:
Genres: Drama / Comedy / Melodrama / Remake.
Director: Liza Azuelos.
Starring: Miley Cyrus, Demi Moore, Ashley Hinshaw, Douglas Booth.
Running Time: 97 minutes.

A Ton Image or a Close Copy

The film LOL tries to recreate the original frame by frame repeating most of the 2008 movie’s scenes. The entire cast and crew was replaced mainly with Americans, and only Lisa Azuelos saved her influence on the remake as a Director and Co-Writer. In Writing department she was joined by Karim Aïnouz, who served in the jury of the Short Films competition at the recent Cannes Film Festival 2012. The Russian distributor tried to decipher the title LOL with three different words, e.g. Summer. Classmates. Love. In Russian their first letters do make the LOL abbreviation, what also reflects all the main topics covered by this melodrama.

Lola played by Miley Cyrus is still a young rebel, which is growing in a family with one brother, a sister and their liberal mother Anne performed by Demi Moore, showing the audience her great fit for current 49 years of age. Family friends are Kathy and Roman, often visiting Anne for a kitchen’s chat discussing nearly the same issues, which are bother their son Jeremy and Lola herself, who was nicknamed Lol. Now these old characters are delivered by new faces of Gina Gershon, Fisher Stevens and Jean-Luc Bilodeau.

The remake of LOL still shows Lola failing her school studies and getting bad grades. Instead of learning, she is more focused on her love affairs, while trying to fix own personal life. Two her school friends play together in a band. Chad cheated on Lola, while best male friend Kyle was near to calm her down. They are presented by George Finn and an Englishman named Douglas Booth. The latter one has beaten other 300 contenders for the new role of Romeo in another Shakespeare’s film adaptation of the Romeo and Juliet (2012) story, coming out this year. Kyle is disciplined by a strict Father performed by Sam Derence, who wears clothes of the color of his predecessor’s, while also sharing the negative views on Kyle’s passion for music.

Meanwhile, Anne herself is trying to improve her life after a divorce enjoying the support, coming from her kind-hearted Granny delivered by Marlo Thomas, who behaves nearly like Nana from The Lucky One (2012) drama. Anne still secretly sees her former husband Allen, although she is much more pleased with a good friend, who is a police detective named James. These males are performed by Thomas Jane and Jay Hernandez of the Hostel (2005-2007) dilogy. Although, all the school adventures and experiences in the film take up much more screen time than adult dating.

Young Emily is presented by an American model and actress Ashley Hinshaw right out of her Chronicle (2012) film. This time she really looks like a twin to Marion Chabassol, who played her character in the original movie. They could easily double each other anywhere, so the casting team made a good job here for the LOL remake. The career of promising Asley Hinshaw has been developing rapidly, and in 2012 she will reveal herself fully in the new drama Cherry (2012), where the actress agreed to be filmed naked for the first time. However, the teenage melodrama, which this Review is about, gives her a much more innocent role of a sweet girl tormented by sensual desires and pranks of her little brother Jackson, disciplined by a conservative Emily’s Mom and falling for two passions: intelligent pervert Wen, and a charismatic math teacher – Mr. Ross.

These roles were managed by Brady Tutton, Nora Dunn, Adam G. Sevani and Austin Nichols. Another good female friend of Lola is named Janice, who starts dating Lloyd. This couple is presented by ambitious Lina Esco and muscular Tanz Watson. Remake is faithful to absolute ethnic diversity. Finally, the famous image of the school «sticky» girl was given to Ashley played by model Ashley Michele Greene, who is better known for her Alice Cullen role in the Twilight (2008-2012) saga.

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Back to School

Read on further to learn about filming and the soundtrack of LOL.