Synopsis
It's the fall of 1985. The intertwining tales of three 5th grade friends, Chris, Joe and Ted, unfold in the suburban paradise of Palo Alto, as the threat of a mountain lion looms over the community.
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Cast
- James FrancoPhil
- Henry HopperHenry
- Steven WiigMichael
- Barry Del ShermanDaniel
- George MaguireEd
- Tony VellaBill
- Carlisle ForresterWaitress
- Clara AranovichNewscaster
- James DarbyshireSteve
- Todd Aaron BrotzeJohn
- 75
Entertainment Weekly
Franco gives one of his most subtle performances yet as a recovering-alcoholic father, and the three young newcomers’ performances are honest and affecting, capturing what it feels like to be adrift and on the verge of adolescence. - 70
The Hollywood Reporter
Yosemite is a contemplative drama, low-key perhaps to a fault. But Demeestere shows acute sensitivity in her understanding of boys and their growing awareness of the world, with its real and imagined menaces. - 70
Variety
Resolutely unshowy, sometimes almost too lower-case in its observations, Yosemite pays off in an authenticity that pervades both individual scene rhythms and performances. - 70
Village Voice
Like Gia Coppola's Palo Alto (2013), a lyric and biting evocation of contemporary well-to-do teendom, Gabrielle Demeestere's Yosemite mines Franco's fiction for its most vital quality: his unsentimental depiction of youthful insecurity, this time among fifth-graders. - 50
The New York Times
Ms. Demeestere’s direction winds up frustratingly splitting the difference between thoughtfully detached and just plain vague. - 50
Los Angeles Times
Although evocative and nicely observed, the coming-of-age drama Yosemite ultimately proves too low-key and elliptical to make much of an impression. - 38
Movie Nation
It never adds up to anything more than the mood Demeestere manages to translate from Franco’s fiction. Which makes Yosemite a “film festival movie,” nothing more than a promising idea or two and an interesting tone to recommend it.