Thirteen-year-old Jesse wants to be an artist and believing that his mundane, middle-class life has left him unprepared, he sets out looking for wildness and women.
Thirteen-year-old Jesse wants to be an artist, but believes that his mundane middle-class Toronto life has left him unprepared. After reading a book on what it takes to be a "true-artist", he sets out looking for risk, ecstasy, wildness and women. Amy George is a microbudget independent drama about the time in a boy's life when he's at his least likeable.—Anonymous
Living as the only offspring of his middle class liberal-minded parents Sabi and Tim in Toronto, thirteen year old Jesse is much like most boys in his situation, where he is no longer doing things he did as a child like climb trees, but is starting to think about more adult issues without fully understanding them. He also doesn't talk to his parents much about what's on his mind, he hiding things under his mattress he doesn't want them to know. According to Tim, Jesse is at a stage in life where most people would not like him. Jesse wants to be an artist, that idea spurred by a class assignment called the Freedom project: to take photographically a figurative self-portrait, either how one perceives him/herself or wants to be perceived, with the actual photo subject being one's own choice. In reading about the philosophies of being a true artist, Jesse believes his uneventful existence hasn't prepared him properly for the artist life. Often with camera in hand, Jesse goes on a new direction in life to experience those things without knowing how to go about it or fully comprehending the ramifications of his actions or behavior. Beyond his friends, he is influenced largely by two people. One is Tara Morrison, his parents' friend who often helps him with his homework and is the adult figure to who he turns at this stage in his life when questioning those adult issues. The other is Amy George, the slightly older teenaged girl living a couple of houses down, she who is the manifestation of many of those artistic fantasies.—Huggo
Thirteen-year-old Jesse is assigned a school project. A photographic self-portrait intended to portray one's self without resorting to literal representation.
Jesse lives with his parents, Sabi and Tim, in the lefty, middle class Toronto neighborhood of Riverdale. A quiet and distant only-child with budding artistic aspirations, Jesse is inspired by the assignment to look for excitement and meaning in the world around him.
Wielding a newly-acquired camera, Jesse sets out to capture his surroundings, but soon realizes the undramatic nature of his family, neighborhood and existence. Meanwhile, Sabi and Tim find themselves questioning Jesse's developing character as they watch him abandon his childhood personality and mature into an uncommunicative adolescent.
Frustrated by his lack of inspiration, Jesse discovers a book in the school library which advises him: "You can never be a real artist until you have made love to a woman." Taking the text at face value and with the encouragement of a family friend, Jesse begins to look for new experiences, both foreign and adult, which leads him to an encounter with his young, female neighbor, Amy. Peering into her window at night, he snaps a quick photograph of her.
Days later, the two are inadvertently reunited, allowing Jesse an opportunity to explore his prepubescent fascination with the opposite sex. After a long evening of games, exploration and hypnosis, Jesse awakes with confusion and guilt, unsure whether or not he may have overstepped his boundaries. The question of rape consumes his thoughts and Jesse is left struggling to reconcile his uneasy mind.
