Working-class Brooklyn teen Lila (Gina Piersanti) is a perpetual third-wheel observer of her more experienced best friend’s (Giovanna Salimeni) love life. She longs for her own sexual adventures but is at a loss for how to make them happen.
In Eliza Hittman’s thoughtful, original feature debut, Piersanti’s character sets her sights on a college-age meathead (Ronen Rubinstein) and awkwardly stalks him, finding herself in a series of increasingly vulnerable and potentially dangerous situations with him and his friends (one of the more humiliating lines I’ve heard in film recently: “My d- -k doesn’t like you.”).
Gorgeously shot in Brooklyn’s beachfront neighborhoods and devoid of easy sentimentality, “It Felt Like Love” features realistic performances all around, understandable given the cast of mostly first-time actors.
With her expressive face and understated delivery, Piersanti gives us a highly watchable — if anxiety-inducing — take on a teenager’s fumbling curiosity about sex.