Palm Trees and Power Lines – A Harrowing Depiction of Grooming (Early Review)

When it comes to child grooming, most tend to discuss the bigger picture, rather than focusing on the minutiae. On some level, this approach makes sense. In order to solve a problem, one has to consider the wider factors that allow abusers to take advantage of vulnerable youths. At the same time, it’s far too easy to get tangled up in the weeds. Commentators become so overwhelmed by the enormity of the issue that they end up dehumanizing victims and failing to address small-scale micro-aggressions. As viewers, one naturally assumes that they are capable of empathizing with those who have been groomed but it is all too easy to lapse into complacency. 

Palm Trees and Power Lines, a film which presents the grooming process being carried out in an eerily calm manner, forces audiences to look at the world through the eyes of a heartbreakingly insecure teenager. Lea (McInerney) is a seventeen-year-old girl who longs to escape from the remote California town that she has grown up in. Her single mother Sandra (Mol) has to work long hours in order to provide for her family and trusts that her daughter will stay on the straight and narrow as she enters into adulthood. When Lea comes into contact with Tom (Tucker), a mysterious older man who sets out to seduce her, she finds herself responding to his advances. He uses increasingly manipulative practices to get her to acquiesce to his demands, while deceiving her into believing that he will take care of her. 

For the most part, this story takes place in a curiously nondescript location. Audiences immediately understand why a girl like Lea has dreams out of getting out of this place by any means necessary. Her desperation is muted in the face of strip malls that offer meagre gratification, but she still wrestles with the sense that her life hasn’t really begun yet. The production designers smartly choose to keep the miserabilism to a minimum and take great pains to emphasize the fact that there is nothing ‘unusual’ about Lea’s day-to-day life. 

Jamie Dack also lets this story unfold at a disturbingly unhurried pace. Tom is successfully able to project a louche, unbothered veneer and seemingly effortlessly draws Lea into his web of deception. Audiences only slowly become aware of the fact that he’s following a routine of sorts and knows how to systematically break down a child’s defences. The screenplay allows us to remain at a remove from the characters and Tom’s transgressions are documented in an almost clinical manner. This approach provides the filmmaker with an opportunity to diverge from other accounts of abusive behavior. Where other directors make a purely emotional appeal, Dack attempts to introduce a touch of realism into her telling of a story that could have been reduced down to pure melodrama. 

In a sense, this limits the impact that the film has. For all her obvious technical merit, Dack is still constricted by the fact that most films about such a harrowing subject matter eventually take on the structure and tone of a public service announcement. She studiously avoids Lifetime-style sensationalism and avoids leaning on easy emotional beats, but this still feels like a project with limited potential. If nothing else, it proves that Dack is a rising talent who is willing to tackle hot button issues from unexpected angles. She has a strong feel for the mundanity of underpopulated small towns and succeeds in drawing robust performances out of newcomers and industry veterans. As an observant social commentator who appears to have tapped into the zeitgeist, Dack looks to have a bright future ahead of her. 

still courtesy of Momentum Pictures

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Zita Short

I am passionate about screwball comedies from the 1930s and certain actresses from the Golden Age of Hollywood. I’ll aim to review new Netflix releases and write features, so expect a lot of romantic comedies and cult favourites.