Off and Running

A tactful but probing and richly satisfying study of an entire family thrown into self-doubt by a teenager venturing into risky territory as she struggles to find her way.

A patient, slightly stiff, often intensely moving portrait of a girl who believes her choices are literally black and white.

The director-producer, Nicole Opper, has known Avery's Brooklyn family for years, which no doubt accounts for the film's intimacy.

What at first looks like a heartwarming portrait of a highly blended modern family turns into a no less engrossing illustration of that situation's possible pitfalls in Off and Running.

The role played by her camera in exacerbating Avery’s natural, adolescent self-absorption continues to nag; in the end, I was less concerned for the wildly indulged Avery -- whose own narration reveals a charismatic and extremely fortunate young woman -- than for the hearts breaking around her.

Initially succeeds at accounting for the formation of this unlikely family unit, but as the subject’s life starts to unravel, cut-rate cable TV techniques (trifling montages, an overactive string score) deaden the full impact of her crisis.