It’s a patient, simmering film, one that seems to be about one thing—teenage boredom and ennui—and turns into another: a deeply disquieting study of sexual grooming. Jamie Dack’s first feature, Palm Trees and Power Lines (which opens today in select theaters and on VOD), is already one of the best movies of the year—a study of how 17-year-old Lea, played with convincing restlessness by newcomer Lily McInerny, can fall in love with Tom (Jonathan Tucker), a man twice her age, and how he can be both magnetic and smoothly intent on destroying her.
Palm Trees debuted at Sundance in January of 2022 and has taken something of a winding road toward distribution. That may be because it’s challenging—dark and methodically paced but also deliberately painting Lea and Tom not so much as victim and villain but as two people genuinely falling in love over a hot, empty summer in a Southern California suburb. Dack, who shares screenwriting credit with Audrey Findlay, wrote the film after the #MeToo reckoning of the late 2010s, and Power Lines is deepened by all the revelations of that moment. But it’s also fearless and complex—reminding us that romance and attachment can lie at the heart of exploitation.
It is sure to elicit strong reactions—especially given its uncompromising ending. I spoke to Dack, a graduate of NYU’s film program, about how her movie sprang from personal experience and how people are responding to it.
Vogue: Could you talk about the origin of the movie and the personal history that you drew upon as you were writing it?
Jamie Dack: Yes. I had a relationship with someone who was much older than me when I was younger. And you know, it got to a certain point in my life where I started looking back on that experience differently. I wanted to explore that in my writing—what could have gone wrong—and I used the protagonist as a proxy for my younger self. I was also learning and reading about manipulation and grooming. So I kind of combined the research I was doing with my own experiences.
Do you have a sense of how common such relationships are?
I’m blown away by how common they are—whether that’s from friends of mine sharing their stories or from people working on the film sharing them with me, and also from complete strangers who see the movie and come up to me at screenings or reach out to me on Instagram and share their stories. It’s incredibly common.
Is it mostly women sharing these stories with you?
You know, it is mostly women, but not only—which has been interesting for me to see as well.
I would imagine the movie is galvanizing for people who see part of their own history in it, which makes me wonder why it may have been challenging to distributors. Can you talk about the process of getting this movie made and released?
My experience has been the same through financing and distribution, just in terms of people being—I would have to say, afraid of it. That’s disappointing, and I think it’s an indication of where we are in the industry and what sorts of stories people are afraid to tell. At the script stage, people would read it—I probably pitched it a hundred times—and it was, you know, “We love this, it’s great, but it’s too dark for us.” Or, “Would you want to change the ending? If you want to change the ending, we’d love to continue the conversation.” When it got to distribution, it was like: “Would you wanna take out this scene?” But without that scene the movie really isn’t what it is. It was a challenge, but in the end we found the right home for it. [Palm Trees and Power Lines is being released by Momentum Pictures.]
The movie comes across as much as a love story as one about grooming and sexual predation. Does that characterization surprise you?
Not at all. Both my lead actors approached it that way, and I approached directing it that way. I wrote it from Lea’s perspective, and the film is told entirely through her—we’re never not with her in a scene. So I wanted the audience to understand why she makes the decisions that she does. And it’s critical for them to understand that she does love Tom. People have an idea in their minds of how this sort of thing happens, that it often includes violence or force. I was interested in showing a more subtle version where they are genuinely in love. I even think Tom loves her as much as someone like him possibly can.
The film underscores how difficult it can be to be a 17-year-old girl. Do you have experience with teenage girls, or were you drawing on the experience of having been one yourself?
I would say having been one was my biggest influence. And so it makes me really happy when people watch the film and remark on how real the teenagers feel, because it’s just ripped directly from my adolescence—whether that’s specific things Lea and her friends say or make jokes about or the dynamics between the teens. Somehow it still all holds up.
Can you talk about the place where the film is set? It’s sort of a generic suburb in the southwest.
Yeah, it’s Southern California, but it’s not supposed to be anywhere specific. I had done a series of photographs of suburban neighborhoods that inspired me to want to set the film there. And the setting is one of the vulnerabilities that allows Tom to prey on Lea—that suburban malaise she’s feeling in this place. I grew up on the East Coast but also in suburbia, and I felt the same way she feels.
I don’t want to spoil the ending, but it’s devastating and so uncompromising and honest. Was that ending moment always the one you had in your head?
It was. I’d read this book written by a survivor of, let’s say, sexual manipulation, and she talks about how she eventually went back to the motel room she was living in with this guy. And she’s happy that she has escaped him—his stuff is all packed up, and he’s gone—but she’s also overwhelmed by this feeling of, like, How could you leave me? And the duality of those things was interesting to me.
Given the difficulties you had getting this film to the finish line, are there any messages you have for filmmakers who want to make challenging movies like this one?
All I can say is what another filmmaker once said to me: You have to be kind of naive to believe you can be a filmmaker. And I really feel like that’s true. I had to just believe with all my being that I was going get this film made, no matter how many people told me no. And so I would just say it’s about—I mean, this sounds cliché, but it really is about never giving up.
Can you tell us what you’re doing next?
I’m writing two features. One of them is my own idea, and one of them I optioned the rights to—an Italian novella that I’m adapting.
Oh, what’s the novella?
I’m not really saying yet. But it was an Italian novella written in 1947, and I’m very excited about it.
Are you a great reader of mid-century Italian literature?
[Laughs.] I’m not, actually. I read a lot, but this is one someone recommended to me a few years ago. It’s not every day that I read something I want to adapt. This one I really couldn’t shake for a few years. And so here I am.
See an exclusive clip from Palm Trees and Power Lines here:
