2009 AFI Dallas Film Festival - Lymelife

(USA, 2008, 94 mins)
35mm
Regional Premiere
Directed By: Derick Martini

Scott Bartlett is a typical 15-year-old boy growing up in late-1970s Long Island. His suburban existence is marked by a nerdy interest in Star Wars and his longtime crush on neighbor/best friend Adrianna Bragg—all against the paranoid backdrop of a Lyme disease outbreak, which has freaked out Scott's high-strung mother, Brenda, and has claimed Adrianna's father, Charlie, as a victim. With Charlie out of work, Adrianna's mother, Melissa, takes a job working for Scott's father, Mickey, a successful real-estate developer, and soon embarks on a messy affair. When eldest son Jimmy returns from army training and confronts his father about Mickey's adultery both families are forever changed.

Drawing from their own childhoods, director Derick Martini and his brother and co-writer, Steven Martini, bring a sense of place and authenticity to Lymelife. Their funny and emotionally devastating script poignantly reinvents both the suburban drama and the coming-of-age story at the same time.

Information from the festival's website