In California, a group of adolescents deal with life as they drink, make out and do extreme things.

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In California’s chic Palo Alto, a group of adolescents deal with life as they drink, make out and do extreme things: April, a model student who lets herself be seduced by one of her teachers; Teddy, who is doing community service in a library after a car accident involving alcohol; Fred, who get increasingly self-destructive; and Emily, who tries to treat her loneliness by sleeping with boys.

Directed by Gia Coppola, granddaughter of Francis Ford and niece of Sofia, and adapted from the book by James Franco about a not-so-gilded youth full of sex, drugs and destruction, Palo Alto has traces of parody of American independent cinema. This bitter-sweet story of disenchanted and idle adolescence abused by the adult world pushes at already open doors, and overdoes silences and unspoken expression amidst wasted directing. There are a few good stolen moments filmed with a certain sensitivity and played by convincing actors, but that’s not enough to make this movie any more than an extremely banal debut.