Palm Trees and Power Lines

Palm Trees and Power Lines (2023) — watch online on iFILM the debut feature from writer-director Jamie Dack, winner of the Sundance 2023 Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Screenplay. An American drama about a sixteen-year-old girl, adrift in a dead-end summer, who takes up with a man twice her age and mistakes control for care.

Lea (Lily McInerny) has nowhere to be. Her mother (Gretchen Mol) is distracted, her friends are bored, and the days blur. Then Tom (Jonathan Tucker) shows up — patient, attentive, saying exactly what she needs to hear. Dack's camera stays close to Lea's face, tracking the small moments where attention tips into something else entirely.

The film drew sharp attention at Sundance precisely because it refuses to turn its subject into a cautionary tale poster. It's uncomfortable, slow-burning, and specific — the kind of drama that trusts its audience to sit with difficulty. Stream Palm Trees and Power Lines (2023) online on iFILM.