Laggies

Plot

Megan (Keira Knightley) is an aimless twenty-eight-year-old who is in a committed relationship with her high school sweetheart and is still close with her high school friends. At her friend Allison's (Ellie Kemper) wedding, her boyfriend unexpectedly proposes marriage. She also sees her father cheating on her mother. Shocked and confused, she flees and runs into teenager Annika (Chloë Grace Moretz) and her friends. After buying them alcohol, Megan plays with their skateboard. When they ask her to join them on their night out, she does.

Returning home, Megan's boyfriend suggests that rather than have a big wedding they elope. Megan agrees but delays the wedding by pretending that she has a week-long career advice seminar to attend.

Megan receives a call from Annika asking her to pretend to be her absentee mother at a guidance counsellor's meeting. Megan goes to the meeting and afterwards asks Annika if, in return, she can stay at her house.

Annika is unsuccessful at sneaking Megan into her house, where her single-parent lawyer father Craig (Sam Rockwell) questions Megan about her relationship with his daughter. Megan lies that there was a gap between her lease expiring and her moving to a new apartment. Craig reluctantly allows her to stay and gradually begins to trust her. Annika asks Megan to drive her to her estranged mother's house to see her for the first time in years.

Craig asks Megan to go out drinking and they later have sex. The next morning, he offers to let her stay in his home longer than the week she asked for, but she declines.

Annika, seeing them kiss, tentatively tells Megan that she approves of the relationship. Megan reveals that she is still engaged after Annika finds the engagement ring in Megan's purse and that Craig has no idea. On the way home from shopping for Annika's prom dress, the two begin fighting, causing Patrick to accidentally crash the car. He tells Megan that he has been drinking the wine that she bought for them because he is upset that his parents are sending him to boarding school in the fall. Feeling guilty, Megan tells the police that she was the one driving the car. She still has alcohol on her breath from that morning and is arrested. When Craig arrives to free her, Megan reveals her engagement as well as the fact that she bought alcohol for his daughter.

Megan's father picks her up from the police station. He says he has confessed his cheating to her mother and they are still trying to work things out.

Misty shows up at Megan's door with the white dress Megan bought and a few other things left over from the car crash. She tries to convince Megan to go to prom. When Anthony comes down the girls lie and say Misty is a girl Megan was mentoring at the seminar. Once he goes back upstairs Misty offers her a ticket for prom, urging her to go one last time but this time saying to do it for Annika.

Even then Megan continues to lie to her fiancé about where she had been for the past week. At the airport he takes a selfie and sends it to their high school friends. Megan, believing that their relationship is stifling her, breaks up with him, unfriends all of her high school best friends and proceeds to go to Annika's prom, where she tells Annika to be honest and pursue Junior, a friend whom she is in love with. Megan goes to Craig's house, and leaves him a note on a box of wine asking him to check one of two boxes labeled 'yes' or 'no' to the question 'Can we try again?', and knocks on the front door. Craig answers the door, reads the note, sees her at the bottom of the steps and closes the door on her. Afterwards she knocks again and picks up the hidden keys outside, but before she can unlock the door Craig opens the door again and lets her in.

Title

The writer and director have explained that choosing the title "Laggies" was a complex decision. Shelton revealed that she had never heard of the term laggies before making the film, but screenwriter Andrea Seigel insisted it was a common term for adult slackers. As the film was made, Shelton realized that no one except Seigel had heard of laggies before. However, the title stuck, although in the UK the film was released as Say When.

Pre-production

Before Knightley joined the film, Anne Hathaway was attached to lead with Moretz, but Hathaway left the film due to timing conflicts with Interstellar. It was announced in December 2013, that Laggies would be part of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival lineup.

Filming

Principal photography began in the first week of June 2013 in Seattle. Filming took place at 23 different locations over a 26-day shoot.

Filming wrapped in the start of July.

Marketing

On July 16, 2014, the first official trailer and a teaser poster for the film were released. Another trailer was released on September 24.

Reception

Laggies received mostly positive reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 67% based on 109 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The site's consensus states: "Laggies may not do as much with its ideas as it could, but it's buoyed by a winsome performance from Keira Knightley, as well as Lynn Shelton's empathetic direction." On Metacritic, the film has a rating of 63 out of 100 based on reviews from 32 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."