before it kills her, Lara Jean Gallagher’s “Clementine” begins with an intimate little scene that shadows the rest of the movie.
We meet Karen (Otmara Marrero) in some iPhone footage that her unseen ex-girlfriend shot in bed one morning — a loving, needy close-up.
“Wake up, I need inspiration,” a sober English voice intones from off-screen.
“You’re beautiful.
You’re so young.” And then: “You’re going to break my heart.”Karen replies that she’s “never broken one single heart,” but her response isn’t reassuring.
On the contrary, it lingers in the air like an omen.
And the more that she loses sight of herself during Gallagher’s loaded but unfulfilled debut feature, the more those words seem to explain her problem.
Karen naturally defaulted to a recipient role in her relationship with a much older artist — she was the object of affection, more seen than seeing.
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