A decent directorial feature debut that is an honest and intimate coming-of-age portrayal of a teenager’s sexual awakening.

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With so much acclaim showered upon Eliza Hittman’s latest film, Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020), which won the Grand Jury Prize at Berlin, the time might be ripe to go back to where she first started not so long ago with It Felt Like Love. 

Falling firmly in the teenage coming-of-age genre, Hittman’s directorial feature debut is rather acute in its portrayal of a young girl’s sexual awakening. 

Her camera follows Lila (Gina Piersanti) wherever she goes, be it to the beach, dance class, or in one of the film’s more provocative scenarios, a den of young weed-smoking guys hoping for a blowjob or two. 

Hittman doesn’t show us anything explicit, but through Lila’s curiosity about what it’s like to be in love, we experience her confusion, anticipation and fears. 

There is a lot of peer pressure going on—Lila’s friend, Chiara, boasts of her sexual exploits with her boyfriend, while Lila’s neighbour, a much younger boy boasts of ‘making out’ with a girl. 

Lila, of course, (prematurely) blows her own trumpet as well, as she repeatedly tries to seek out an older guy, hoping that it might lead to sex. 

Hittman’s film, while modestly executed, is honest with its characters, even if it does fall into certain genre clichés that plague indie cinema e.g. a scene on the beach at night alone (pardon the reference to Hong Sang-soo), or incommunicability with a single parent, etc. 

It Felt Like Love reminds me of the much more superior Fish Tank (2009) by Andrea Arnold, both thematically and with a protagonist who enjoys dance.  Still, this and Beach Rats (2017) should interest new fans of Hittman.    

Grade: B

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