LouE15 "Skipped Parts" is good, unusual, challenging "small" film about sex, relationships and growing up. I really enjoyed it and thought it was pretty brave of everyone involved. I'm having fun trying to work out who found it more controversial: the zealots supposed to hate it, or the liberals itching for the zealots to hate it. All I can say is, thank goodness for the internet, without which I'd never have heard about it or seen it.*spoilers from here* Jennifer Jason Leigh has a great vampy time as peroxided young Lydia, banished to Grovont (couldn't they spell Gros Ventre?) Wyoming from her Daddy's expensive Southern home with her illegitimate son Sam (as a punishment for her bad behaviour and for showing him up: Daddy's running for Governor). What starts as mere time in solitary becomes more interesting – for better and worse – for Lydia and Sam as they both meet their match. Maurey Pearce is one of the local kids "who can read" and is determined, with Sam's help, to know what are the "skipped parts" in all the books about love, marriage and sex. Hank Elkrunner is the Blackfeet cowboy whose steady persistence with the shiftless Lydia is finally rewarded. "Skipped Parts" may not be the most polished and definitive 'coming of age' type drama out there; but it wins my respect for many of the little details that set it apart from teenager and rom-com dross: the presence of Jennifer Jason Leigh, always a flag that something interesting's going on; the nice interaction between the two young leads, Bug Hall (Sam) and Mischa Barton (actually playing her age as Maurey); the quality of the cast, including Michael Greyeyes as Hank and Peggy Lipton as a pretty devastating Laurabel Pearce; the really fantastic sound, costumes, sets and locations. If you find the idea of underage sex unpalatable, well, I'm sorry for you. It's very much a reality, as any look at any tabloid newspaper in any given month will tell you. And it always was: what an outrageous lie it is, that teen and extra-marital pregnancy didn't occur in more repressed decades. For me this was as much the story of Lydia's growing up as it was of Sam's – in fact, more so. I found Lydia's story by the end of the film more believable than Sam's; she's so like a child herself - so unwilling to do more than play at the drama of life.Even I must admit that part of the ending did slightly jar on me. I live in a very liberal world: I've seen households made up of very unusual (and unexpectedly successful) combinations of people, and am only too happy with new, non-nuclear family images. But I wouldn't be altogether happy about a young teenager of my acquaintance watching this ending, and, perhaps, drawing the conclusion that if you leap backwards off a flight of steps there will always be someone there to catch you; because that simply isn't true. Conservative moment over. If you liked this film and want similar things, perhaps you'll be interested in the path I took to get here, which went something like this: Eric Schweig in the lovely modern fairytale "Big Eden". That film's director Thomas Bezucha, who also directed "The Family Stone", with its complicated modern family dynamics. Jennifer Jason Leigh, queen of unconventional roles (e.g. as Dorothy Parker and as Catherine Slocum, 'heroine' of "Washington Square"). Michael Greyeyes, an accomplished plains Cree First Nations dancer who I'd thought was pretty impressive in TV historical romance "Stolen Women, Captured Hearts". Films about outcasts, others, the different, the lonely - try "Trust" by Hal Hartley; "The Station Agent" and "Different for Girls".

jonmeta Phrases like "this movie will drive the Religious Right nuts" get a lot of mileage. A number of reviewers have said it about "Skipped Parts". So I'm wondering what the Religious Right really would think of this film if they examined it seriously.First, the storyline suggests that sex education for kids is not a good thing and may have unwanted consequences. The women who give the advice, Lydia and Delores, are pretty unsympathetic characters when they're talking to the adolescents. Are we meant to applaud the way they give explicit details (complete with taco shell, like a silly pantomime of a sex ed class) to 14-year-olds, while withholding the key point of where this might lead? I don't think so, because their recklessness is part of a commonplace theme that runs through the film - the kids are more sensible than the adults - and also because we're shown those consequences later. Lydia and Delores might as well give Sam and Maurey a hand grenade and tell them to play carefully. So score a point for Religious Right family values here.Second, the film doesn't take the view of abortion that the Religious Right might expect from so called "Hollywood liberals". It doesn't present it as a quick and relatively painless way out of a jam, nor does it do any pulpit pounding about the dark days before Roe v Wade. The film could have made Lydia and Delores into proto-feminist heroes, enlightened before their time, but it didn't. In the story, there are two consequences of visiting the abortion clinic and neither one is a guilt free abortion. So score some big points for "family values".Third, the film ends by affirming the stereotypical woman-man-girl-boy family: the waitress, the Indian, the cheerleader, and the precocious young narrator. Sure, the narrator and the cheerleader have a baby, and the waitress is a grandmother before she's thirty. But unless the Religious Right has recently come out against grandchildren being raised by multi- generational families, I fail to see the problem. So what's there to offend the RR, other than the portrayal of Wyoming natives as rodeo loving illiterates? (And that's only offensive –probably -if you're from Wyoming.) Well, there's the scene where the two young teens face each other in their underwear, saying something like, "I think this is how it's done." It was uncomfortable and strange. But a lot of reviewers found it creepy, and I'm sure not all are card-carrying members of the 700 Club. And it doesn't change the fundamental themes of the story outlined above.Lydia's loose morals and rebelliousness are sure to offend the Religious Right, right? Yes, because her actions are *meant* to be offensive: her irresponsible talk, her rambling, self- indulgent rudeness to the welcome lady, her inability to do a stick of work, her cruelty to a man who's much too good for her. The RR is offended and so is everyone else. So maybe, in the movies, actions shouldn't always be judged desirable if they offend conservative Christians. Even the RR is sometimes offended by what's actually offensive. But I digress. The good news is that, as in all traditional morality tales, Lydia comes round in the end. She gets a job, declares independence (rather than just rebellion) from her father, and settles down with a man who loves her. Sure, she's white and he's Native American, but not even the film's illiterate Wyomians are offended by that. That leaves just one theme that seems custom made to offend conservative religious types. The film threatens to undermine parental authority and traditional family values by making the kids more sensible and moral than the adults. In fact, the grown ups are mostly first class hypocrites, as revealed especially in the confrontation at the abortion clinic. Sam, on the other hand, is an example of responsibility and kindness. But wait. I think I've read that somewhere before. Something about religious leaders being blind Pharisees and children being the kingdom of heaven. Yes, that definitely sounds like a deliberate attempt to offend the Religious Right.

caspian1978 Skipped Parts is a coming of age drama / comedy that is filmed like it is an after school special for a G rated audience. This is part of the reason why this movie lacks an audience. The subject matter is R rated, then again, there is no nudity and very little scenes of a sexual nature. Playing around with an audience (that doesn't exist) it is hard for this movie to be taken serious or funny. The movie has its moments where you wish there was more to see. Many scenes and situations are created but nothing comes from it. In the end, the movie concludes with a hidden moral. If you don't look hard enough, you are sure to miss it. The movie does not hit the audience in the head with a sledge hammer. This is a cute movie with cute characters but nothing grand or amazing. Some characters are close to perfection while others have nothing to offer their character let alone something for the audience to watch. A nice little movie, nothing more.

marius_nicolescu It was one of the best movies I have ever seen, it just made me feel like I did when I was 14. It musn't be spoilt with more than 4 rows. It's just great!!! A must see movie for every one of you who wants to go back to his youth (if he ever had one)