Throughout the last two awful pandemic years, I’ve been feeling sorry for myself for being denied the one thing I love above all – travel. But when rebellious 13-year-old Jenny (Lily Patra), the main character of Writer/Director Jack Soisson’s “My Best Worst Adventure,” finds herself on a dilapidated bus in rural Thailand on the way to grandma’s house after her mother’s death and her stepfather’s refusal to put up with her, I must admit that situation doesn’t look like anybody’s dream vacation.
It doesn’t help that Jenny stubbornly refuses to speak. Instead, she writes disgruntled notes in her diary about getting OUT of here before her birthday in a few days, puzzling poor grandma, not to mention Jenny’s teacher.
And why, Jenny wants to know, does she have to go to school in the summer?
Besides, her computer tablet is fading and there’s no way to charge it.
But Jenny is not averse to fisticuffs, and one day she takes her anger out on Archit (Chinnapat Kitichaivaranggoon), the favored grandson of the village kingpin, and then runs into the jungle, where she promptly gets lost and then bumps into someone else who does not speak – her outcast mute classmate Boonrod (Pan Rugtawatr).
Boonrod has his own parental issues, but the two hit it off, he shows her the way back and next thing you know, they’re planning to enter the village’s traditional water buffalo race.
Is that exotic enough? I thought so, too, and in fact the whole film is likely to both disarm and charm you as much as it did me.
Kudos to cinematographer Vardhana Wanchuplao for making the film look alternately charming and hopelessly old-fashioned, and to Jetsada Hongcharoen for a score that echoes the action wonderfully.
Leave it to a water buffalo to save the day.
“My Best Worst Adventure” opens on digital platforms on Sept. 1.
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