In “Laggies,” Keira Knightley plays Megan Burch, a 28-year-old woman who, 10 years after high school graduation, finds herself holding back from the careers and commitments that her friends seem to be making with the ease and naturalness of applying a perfect smoky eye.
Megan spends most days sign-twirling for her accountant dad (Jeff Garlin) and lying about seeing a career counselor; what she most likes to do is sneak back to her parents’ house, plop on the couch and watch television. Despite somehow having earned an advanced degree, she’s stalled, cocooned and marooned on an isolated, perpetually slacker-friendly island of her own making.
Most observers would agree that Megan is depressed. But “Laggies,” which Lynn Shelton has directed from a script by Andrea Siegel, is anything but a mawkish wallow. When a close shave with adulthood sends Megan into a tailspin, she does nothing more self-destructive than regress, in this case befriending a 16-year-old high school student named Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz) and temporarily moving in with the teenager and her rather puzzled but patient single dad.
Luckily, that guy is played by Sam Rockwell, who in recent years has delivered impressive performances, sneakily suggesting that underneath that sometimes snarky exterior is a romantic leading man just waiting to burst forth. In “Laggies,” Rockwell lets his sexy-flag fly, developing a slow burn with Knightley that feels hot, exciting and believable even in the film’s most outlandish moments. Viewers may not entirely buy that a 28-year-old is TP-ing houses or raging at keggers with the kiddies. But when Rockwell and Knightley pound shots and he finally brings her in for a kiss? Oh, it’s on.
“Laggies” is the first film Shelton has directed that she hasn’t also written — which results in a film of more commercial polish, but less of the filmmaker’s signature improvisatory, lovably shaggy brio. From its first moments, staged at a hen party for one of Megan’s friends, “Laggies” looks like it’s going to be something akin to a “Bridesmaids” little sister (an effect heightened by the presence of Ellie Kemper).
In many ways, Knightley’s Megan resembles Kristin Wiig’s character in that movie, cast adrift while everyone else in her circle seems to find the formula for growing up and being happy. But “Laggies” ultimately goes in a less conventional direction, which is both is strength and weakness: There are a few too-cute elements (a tortoise with an eating disorder? Really?) and Knightley herself seems too self-possessed to be a credible lost soul.
Fans of Shelton’s earlier films — “Humpday,” “Your Sister’s Sister,” “Touchy Feely” — will almost certainly miss the artful dodginess and rueful, observant humor of Shelton’s singular voice and vision. That said, “Laggies” possesses irrepressible cheer, optimism and an innate sense of ease that often go missing in angstier productions loosely organized under “Aging, fear of.” Unlike its sometimes annoyingly wishy-washy heroine, this is a movie that knows just where it’s going, and finds joy in the journey.
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