Young & Wild is a 2012 Chilean coming-of-agecomedy-drama film directed by Marialy Rivas and co-written by Marialy Rivas, Camila Gutiérrez, María José Viera-Gallo and Pedro Peirano. Starring Alicia Rodríguez and Maria Gracia Omegna, the film tells the story of Daniela, a 17-year-old bisexual girl who writes a blog about the conflicts she experiences between her evangelicalProtestant, conservative family and her sexuality. The film was released at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012 where it was awarded the World Cinema Screenwriting Award.
Plot
Daniela is a 17-year-old girl who lives in Santiago, Chile. Despite her family's deeply held Protestant beliefs, she eagerly explores her sexuality, through both casual sex and a blog titled Young and Wild. The blog serves as a place where she questions her church's teachings and documents her sexual adventures, including her first experiences with masturbation, oral sex, and anal sex. As her blog becomes more popular, it attracts comments from people who range from supportive to gossipy to outright propositioning her for sex. After she is caught having sex with another student, she is expelled from her conservative Christian school. Her mother does not initially react when told the news, and Daniela learns that her beloved aunt, a bohemian who serves as a role model for her, is being taken to the hospital due to cancer. There, her aunt pleads with Daniela's mother not to send the girl to perform grueling missionary work. Instead, Daniela takes a job at a local Christian television station as a gofer, where she meets coworkers Tomás and Antonia. Daniela is immediately drawn to Tomás, about whom she begins fantasizing. The two begin dating, though he refuses to engage in premarital sexual activity. Sexually frustrated, Daniela attempts to seduce him and has varying degrees of success. When she complains to Antonia, Antonia invites her to a party, where Daniela briefly performs oral sex on Tomás until he stops her. As she leaves the party, Daniela whispers to Antonia that she came to have sex with both Tomás and her. Shortly after, Antonia and Daniela begin an affair that Daniela documents on her blog. Daniela's parents come to trust Tomás, whom they allow to stay unsupervised with her. However, Tomás' inhibitions finally break down when Daniela questions whether he is interested in her. The two finally have sex, and Daniela describes on her blog how she feels torn between Antonia and Tomás, both of whom with which she is regularly having sex. Antonia expresses displeasure with their covert relationship, but Daniela is unwilling to commit to only one partner. When her family dines at a restaurant and thieves storm in, the family holds hands and prays, and the robbers pass by them. Daniela subsequently begins to question both her spirituality and morals. Daniela surprises both her blog readers and family when she announces that she wishes to be baptized. Her family is excited, and her aunt arranges a baptism at a lake, the same as her aunt's experience. However, Tomás discovers her blog and learns that she has been cheating on him. Furious, he breaks up with her, and her mother angrily chastises Daniela for her behavior. Her aunt dies shortly afterward, leaving Daniela with many questions, ranging from spirituality to relationships. Daniela closes the film with voice-over that quotes Paul the Apostle and says that she has not abandoned the beliefs of her childhood.
Critics had mixed reactions to the film. The New York Times was unimpressed by Alicia Rodríguez' lead performance and the "insistently blanched" cinematography. On the other hand, other critics praised the portrayal of unwanted emotional conflicts emerging beyond physical relationships. Erik Childress of eFilmCritic writes: "This is a film that respects sex and the emotional consequences that follow once the heat wears off." Todd McCarthy for The Hollywood Reporter said about the film that "the ferocious effort of conservative religions to keep a tight lid on pre-marital sex is as old as history, but seeing it played out in a South American context gives it a new twist, at least onscreen."
