Dandelion

First-time director Mark Milgard displays enormous promise and a surprisingly sensitive touch with this beautifully rendered tragedy.

A perceptive character drama both delicate and tragic.

The two young leads--Vincent Kartheiser and Taryn Manning--bring a sense of reality to their roles. This combines with Milgard’s direction and choice of backdrops to make Dandelion an unassuming journey.

Atmosphere trumps plot throughout, enabling the movie to survive an unfortunate, if inevitable, final-act turn.

So much care has been taken to build a mood of hushed suspense that the rushed, tragic conclusion, in which too little is shown and too little explained, leaves you deeply unsatisfied.

Like its troubled protagonists, Mark Milgard's ultra-sensitive ode to adolescent angst is equal parts earnest and awkward. Should you happen to be a 15-year-old girl, you'll adore it.

It's easy to spot a failed tearjerker, though: All the characters are sobbing all over each other while the people in the audience check their watches.