A stylish twist on the end-of-high-school dramedy, Tyler Taormina’s “Ham on Rye” offers the ethereal echoes of “The Virgin Suicides” with the gossamer veil of a humid summer’s day slowly lifting, but laced with notes of John Hughes on a steady micro-dose of LSD.
That’s to say things are always off-kilter in this movie but the exact nature of whatever is the kink in this coming-of-ager never reveals itself.
And while the narrative hardly goes into the fully unhinged direction it teases, it’s .Director Taormina is a skillful young filmmaker, making his feature debut here.
He’s working with mainly non-professional young actors with a simple setup: it’s the end of a high school year and a prom-like dance looms, along with its anticipatory jitters.
A sprawling cast of teenage boys and girls is introduced in the opening scenes and the costumes and suburban setting suggest someplace middle-America,
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