“Palo Alto” – Gia Coppola’s adaption of James Franco’s short story collection – is about teenagers’ half-hearted attempts to toy with trouble – to rebel. Coppola focuses less on a doomed generation, but rather a generation that has been exposed to “grown up” things without really growing up at all. It’s about the void in teenage heads and lives, and how they try to fill it.

Like much of Franco’s art, the film mimics his own fitful school years, flirting with boundaries and teetering on the edge. The story centers on four teenagers whose actions are somewhere between attention-­seeking and boredom: a potent mix of public intoxication, marijuana use, car jacking, and drunk driving.

I found the portrayal of adults to be particularly powerful in both Coppola’s screenplay and Franco’s short story collection. The film captures the stinging realization that adults are not perfect – the realization which comes to all teenage narcissists sooner or later, that the adults in our lives are not all operating with our best interests at heart. All of the adults in the film are tried and found guilty of ulterior motives and wayward agendas: an art teacher babbling of his near-death experience, April’s (Emma Roberts) weed-smoking dad (Val Kilmer), and a mom whose concern for her daughter switches on and off as casually as a light.

In true, wickedly ironic Franco style, he plays the villain of his own creation: the sketchy, school football coach who involves himself with his vulnerable players. April’s eventual surrender to him captures the role sex plays in teenagers’ lives, somewhere between self-exploration and power-play. Consumed by a bad day, April asserts herself the only way she can think of: sex. Coppola communicates this subtly yet powerfully as she juxtaposes the maturity of the passionate act against the apparent child-like vulnerability of April, freezing the shot on her “days of the week” underwear.

Trust issues ripple throughout the film, conjuring up questions perhaps a bit too existential for a Sunday afternoon: can you trust anybody? Can you even trust yourself? Coppola, likely seeking inspiration from her Uncle Francis, turns to nature to convey April’s lack of trust in her school counselor – the shriveled plant on her desk symbolizing her ability to help her students “grow.”

Perhaps “Palo Alto” struck a chord for me, as it dissects the hurdles we face in the transition to adulthood, a struggle I feel particularly familiar with as I attempt to decide which colleges to apply to. 

This film is rated R.