The story centers around Jude (Asa Butterfield) a teen boy growing up in Lintonburg, Vermont. He hangs out with his best friend Teddy (Avan Jogia) who is also adopted. His dad Les (Ethan Hawke) is with a different family in NYC. In an odd plot point Eliza (Hailee Steinfeld) stops in Vermont, meets the guys and this suddenly becomes a pregnant teen film (not funny like Juno) with an absentee father and a bunch of people, all well meaning, pulling in different directions.

This is an indy style film with the pseudo-deep soundtrack with beginning and ending platitudes. "Life is like a river and we are all minnows..." The time frame in the 1980s and uses the Tompkins Square Park Riots in New York's East Village as a background.

Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity.

This movie is in heavy rotation on tv right now. Don't fall for it. 2 hours lost.

It's 1980 Vermont. Les (Ethan Hawke) is brutally honest in telling his son Jude that he's adopted. Years later, Jude Keffy-Horn (Asa Butterfield) is an emo teenager living with his adopted mother Harriet (Julianne Nicholson) and his sister. His best friend Teddy (Avan Jogia) is desperate to move to NYC and contact his older half-brother Johnny (Emile Hirsch) living there. Les' girlfriend Diane (Emily Mortimer) has a daughter named Eliza (Hailee Steinfeld). It's a dysfunctional alternative family drama and the grimy East Village gets gentrified.

It's often jarring when a lead character dies early on. It's also a little convoluted that Les and Johnny happens to live in the same area. The story would be a lot easier if the three kids go to NYC to find Johnny. Instead, the plot takes strange turns into a weird love triangle. The actors are superb but I'm not sure what to think of their characters. They make me want to stay with them... up to a point. I love these actors so much but the story doesn't live up to them.