Brea Grant Stars in "Homecoming"

Brea Grant stars in "Homecoming"
by theReal_Rebel

Often laugh out loud funny and deeply moving "Homecoming" is a flawed gem of an indie movie about the effects of a soldier coming home then going off again to do her job.

After a 2 year stint in the Army, Medic Estelle Szymanski returns from Afghanistan to her home of Celebration, Florida on an 18 day furlough.

Yes, Celebration, is that town. The one the Disney corps. built in Orlando and much of the underlying visual humor derives from this setting.

While Estelle's mother, Cathy, (Colleen Camp), a cook at her old High School, busies herself with making a holiday out of each day her daughter is home, Estelle and her slacker pals Austin (Tom Fox Davies) and Owen (Sean Hackett) fight, make up then willingly playing along with Cathy. That is, until Cathy, eager to get someone other than Estelle's longtime pals into her daughter's life, introduces her to Derrick (John Robinson), a Biology teacher, as a potential beau.

The film moves along naturally enough, managing to subvert expectations, and averting cliches, however by not making clear what is truly burdening Estelle, the films structure and emotional impact is undermined. Additionally, certain scenes are not allowed to play out to their natural conclusion and, with the exception of one scene, the stresses of a war upon Grant's character are not made visible.

Thankfully the emotional core of the film, the relationship between the three friends, their hi-jinks and clashes are what makes this film worth seeing. The film's flaws only keep a surprisingly fun, funny, and emotionally involving film from being a truly great one.

Brea Grant's, mostly known for genre films ("Halloween 2") and television ("Heroes) is charming and natural in the film despite missing the underlying gravity of a soldier. Also superb are her cast mates Writer/Director/Producer Sean Hackett as annoying yet adorable nerd Owen and Tom Fox Davies as future crooner and boy-band-escapee, Austin, make a credible and believably unbreakable threesome.

While I used the term film in the above review the movie is actually shot in Digital Video using a Canon 7d-DSLR by Cinematographer Anthony Kuhnz and his crew. Had a nice muted, understated quality.

And Editor Kate Hacket did a magnificent job of pulling all the pieces together into a mostly seamless continuity.

Music Composed by Gingger Shankar was emotionally reflective yet subtle and unobtrusive.

If you want to see Homecoming in your hometown. You have to go to Eventful.com and Demand it. By which I mean, you have to actually hit the "Demand it" button after going to "Search" and typing in "film, homecoming"

http://eventful.com/losangeles/events?q=film%2C%20homecoming&ga_search=film%2C%20homecoming&ga_type=events