After opening to favorable reviews out of the Venice Film Festival, Telluride, and TIFF, Gia Coppola’s Palo Alto has been picked up by Tribeca Film this morning.
Based on a series of short stories by James Franco, Gia’s directorial debut is said to “weave together three stories of teenage lust, boredom, and self-destruction” all to the backdrop of high school. Set somewhere in the valley of California, Emma Roberts (niece to Julia Roberts, excellent in It’s Kind of A Funny Story) assumes the lead role as April, a taciturn teen who unexpectedly gets wrapped up in a love triangle between a soccer coach (played by Franco) and a sweet stoner (Jack Kilmer).
For the time being, Tribeca Film plans on distributing the film theatrically sometime in the spring of 2014. It’s good to see a company that prides itself on independent cinema champion Palo Alto, a movie they believe is an “elegant depiction of generational angst and despair which resonates with realism and restraint.”
In a beautifully written piece at Film.com, David Ehrlich called Palo Alto “one of the best movies ever made about high school life in America.” While that’s certainly a grand claim to live up to, all signs — especially from a rave review we published back in September — indicate Gia’s entry into cinema may be a groundbreaking one.
We can only hope the film lives up to the hype we’ve created. Here’s the trailer.