As I decided on a whim to slide into the State Theatre and out of the rain that had drenched me on the streets of Austin, I had no idea that I would be so impressed with the "conveniently-timed and placed" movie I would see.
Fifteen-year old Rachel lives in a Fundamentalist Mormon community in Utah. A few months after discovering a rock 'n' roll cassette tape and listening to forbidden music she had never heard before, Rachel finds herself pregnant. While her parents immediately arrange a marriage, Rachel is convinced it was an immaculate conception not a sin, and she runs away to Las Vegas to find the man on the cassette and answers about her pregnancy.
The story is original, and the acting is so on-point that you find yourself laughing uncomfortably because this cast sells what would normally seem ridiculous. The young Julia Garner, playing Rachel, is perhaps the key to my belief in the story. She and Liam Aiken (also in Girls Against Boys at SXSW 2012) really embody an innocence and purity completely foreign to me, while Rory Culkin nails the part of Clyde, the story's link to a more normal 90s reality. The sound in the film is really well done helping us see Sin City and the biblical story of Mary through brand new eyes.
