Lebanon, Pa. (2011) (Wednesday, January 11, 2012) (136)

Lebanon, Pa. is about Will (Josh Hopkins), a guy in his mid-30s who lives in Philadelphia who has to go to Lebanon, PA to deal with his estranged father's estate once after his death. Once he gets there he becomes friendly with his dad's neighbors, a guy about his age who is raising two teenage kids. The daughter, CJ (Rachel Kitson), is in a Juno-like dilemma about whether or not to keep an unplanned baby and the son is just discovering sex with girls. Will also falls in love with Vicki (Samantha Mathis), a teacher at the high school (yes, of course she is one of CJ's teachers. Of course.) who is married buy upset with her average life.

Easily the best thing about the film is Rachel Kitson who doesn't appear to have ever acted on screen before, but is totally wonderful as a precocious, self-determined teen. She's particularly great because she looks like a teen, a girl who a geeky guy could fall in love with, who would want to go to college rather than becoming a housewife at age 18. She's totally genuine and wonderful. I hope she acts in other stuff again.

This has an overall light tone and is a bit of a real-feeling twist on the "going back home" genre with the abortion talk and all. It's a very small movie and nothing more than one would expect from such a movie... though it does have some good pro-choice, anti-counseling center stuff in it and that's wonderful.

Stars: 2 of 4