I wasn't really impressed by this story if I have to be honest. For a biography I thought it would be something special but it's just the story about a bunch of hippies living of the grid. Probably the most unhappy hippies I ever witnessed. The mother is clearly a bit deranged, not an easy person to live with, and that's quite the opposite I would imagine with hippies. The acting is good though, from the whole cast. But the story is just a bit boring, not really anything special about it. You just feel kind of sorry for the children but that's about it qua emotions.

What an excellent, sometimes heart-rending film. It's not a "coming of age" story of the stereotyped first sex or first violence type, rather, the 13-year-old protagonist learns how unfair and unhelpful adults can be, and finally works up enough courage to try to improve her situation on her own.

Lane 1974 reminds each of us who care about others that no matter how crappy our own childhood was, it could have been just as crappy in a totally different fashion. It's set only a few years after my own era, but the 1970s California hippie, doper, back-to-nature culture is complete foreign to me, other than in film. And yet it was so well acted, both by Lane and her mother - who prefers to be called "Hallelujah" - and so well written and directed, that I believed every minute of it.

Watching it hurts, of course. Seeing a child go hungry makes me appreciate even that nasty powdered milk from the welfare department. It hurts just enough: I'm amazed at the delicate editorial touch that kept the film real without descending into constant, unrelenting pathos.

The film ends abruptly, but at exactly the right time. Not all is well, but there is hope. Kudos to everyone involved.

Maybe there's not a lot of room out there for something rather "classic" like this. It reminds me of some good French cinema; very unAmerican. Think ontological realism. I'm a person who happens to like films in which not much happens on the surface. No great plot here. But this is a very honest film about lost childhood. The young actress is superb and this filmmaker has taken their time to see through a humble, careful, quiet vision. It's how life is lived. I was mesmerized and even moved by this atypical look at a "coming of age" of a sort.