CRSHD: A New Way to Tell Teenage Stories in Film

In this day and age there are so many teenage themed films one can choose from whether on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime or in general. Each film aims to capture the teenage audience, its essence, everyday life and struggle. But not every film is successful at doing so.

Recently, I had the pleasure of seeing the new film shown at Tribeca Film Festival, CRSHD, directed by Emily Cohn. This film is definitely unique in the way it tells the story using cute emojis, social media references and of course - Tinder like dating visuals. I really liked that!

The film is a female-driven sex comedy. It follows the story of three college freshmen friends Izzy Alden (Isabelle Barbier), Anuka (Deeksha Ketkar) and Fiona (Sadie Scott), as they embark on a journey to get crushed! Izzy wants to lose her virginity before the end of the semester to the guy she really likes. It is a very relatable story about navigating the messy ups and downs of love life in college in the age of social media.

What I found quite remarkable in the film is the acting. Even though I am by no means a teenager (way past that stage) I still found myself relating to the emotions going on in some of the characters. Whether a teenager or not, you can enjoy the memory ride back to the time you were one and what revolved around your world then. It is easy to forget how once you entered college life you thought that the most important thing in life was to find a sexual partner...which as we know it is far from the truth when you are older.

It was interesting to see the female emotions and desires emphasized in the film through the lense of a female director and what evoked or provoked those emotions. The use of social media references and style like visuals absolutely help in telling the story from that younger perspective. Instead of filming phone screens the audience is transported into surreal spaces where key props and lighting (like a physical Instagram scroll lit in magenta) are used to represent the digital world. CRSHD is about identity in the digital age, the underlying emotions of insecurity and self-perception that the younger generation can relate to.

“CRSHD was influenced by stories from my own college experience. There was the boy I was obsessed with but couldn’t find on Facebook because his name was “King Tut,” the hot liberal arts lesbian with the perfect Instagram feed who everyone wanted to get with and the friend I escorted to a “crush party” as she searched for the person who submitted her name while I failed at small talk in the backyard. As a filmmaker, I’ve been interested in finding ways to make a computer or tablet or phone act not only as a prop, but also as a scene partner, since these devices often carry the weight of human emotion but lack the cinematic nuance to convey it. CRSHD is my first attempt at this,” says Cohn.

Cohn is a New York City-based filmmaker and this is her debut feature film, which had its World Premiere at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival. She is listed as one of NY Times’ nine filmmakers to have on your radar. Her innovative approach in telling this complicated age old story of girls’ college crushes is worth seeing.

If you are looking for a fun film to watch while in quarantine, I recommend it. You can check out how to see the film at https://www.crshdmovie.com/.

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