Although the genre addresses one of the messiest and most complex periods of human life, coming-of-age movies have a dispiriting tendency to be formulaic, predictable, misty-eyed remembrances of times past, as seen through the rose-colored glasses of nostalgic adulthood. That's certainly the case with Skipped Parts, a strained period comedy-drama that squeezes complicated issues—abortion, class, unwanted pregnancy, teen sex—into the reassuring, one-size-fits-all conventions of the coming-of-age movie. Co-producer Jennifer Jason Leigh stars as the bleached-blonde, free-spirited daughter of a loutish Southern politician who moves with her teenage son (Bug Hall) to Wyoming in 1963 to avoid becoming a political liability. Once settled, Leigh sets about sleeping her way through the town, while Hall wrestles with the mysteries of sex alongside no-nonsense cheerleader Mischa Barton, who attempts, with little success, to keep their sexual relationship free from emotional entanglements. Adapted by Tim Sandlin from his novel, Skipped Parts begins like a typical coming-of-age comedy, with Hall dispensing glib-beyond-his-years wisecracks to a familiar assortment of high-school types (the bully, the mean coach, the geeky girl) when not pausing briefly to mourn the loss of innocence represented by John F. Kennedy's assassination. An unwanted pregnancy inevitably moves the film into darker, more sober terrain, as its characters pay a heavy price for their sexual indiscretions and Hall and Barton learn an important lesson about responsibility. Half glib sex comedy, half preachy family drama, Skipped Parts attempts to have it both ways, ostensibly celebrating Leigh's spunkiness and iconoclasm while showcasing a mindset nearly as judgmental as the townspeople it demonizes. As Hall's young, attractive, Oedipally challenged mother, Leigh gives a characteristically passionate, full-bodied performance, but she's betrayed by a script less interested in understanding than judging her, as her son and her noble Native American lover do in the film's two most excruciating scenes. For an American coming-of-age movie, Skipped Parts is unusually blunt about sexual matters, but its bluntness manifests as a sort of winking naughtiness that curdles quickly into glib moralism. Iconoclasm may be well and good, the film seems to argue, but it's no real substitute for settling down with the right man.