Alison Torem, Philip R. Smith/Photo: Sean Willliams
RECOMMENDED
David Schwimmer and Andy Bellin’s piece about high-tech sexual assault isn’t anything new; we’ve already seen the internet-predator angle mined to death on “Law and Order: SVU.” But the stellar individual performances rise above the script to give us a bleak picture of technology’s abilities to unite and divide.
Annie (Allison Torem) is a well-adjusted high schooler whose long-distance friendship with a boy her age turns serious and sexual. He insists on an in-person rendezvous, and Annie discovers her adolescent boyfriend is really a 35-year-old man. The encounter results in a family’s fabric ripped apart at the seams as a young woman comes undone.
Torem is an ingenue’s ingénue; she invests her character with completely plausible vulnerability, yearning and discomfort. Philip Smith’s father is heartbreaking as he faces a daughter he doesn’t know anymore in a situation he cannot control. The material’s trite, but the performers give it new life. (Lisa Buscani)
