C-

It’s astounding that so feeble a coming-of-age tale as Enid Zentelis’ “Evergreen” should be receiving a national release in a hundred or so theatres when plenty of superior small films never get beyond the festival circuit. But for some reason an AMC executive saw the scrawny little independent feature at Sundance, embraced it, and decided to open it on the chain’s screens across the country. One can be certain it won’t be there for long.

It’s basically a trite coming-of-age tale about Henri (Addie Land), a fourteen-year old who comes to the northwest with her mother Kate (Cara Seymour). Kate is fleeing an abusive marriage, and intends to make a new life for them in her old hometown. They move in with Henri’s grandmother (Lynn Cohen), a Latvian immigrant who has never lost her accent and lives in a rather dilapidated old house, and Kate soon gets a job in what appears to be the town’s sole workplace–a cosmetics factory; she also links up with an unlikely beau, Jim (Gary Farmer), an avuncular native American who works as a dealer in a nearby casino. Henri, meanwhile, catches the eye of well-to-do schoolmate Chat Turly (Noah Fleiss), and before long she’s spending lots of time at his house, almost being adopted by his mother Susan (Mary Kay Place) and keeping her home circumstances secret out of shame. The crux of the drama lies in her ultimately realizing that the Turlys are, despite their material well-being, even worse off than her own family–Susan is an agoraphobic deeply insecure in her marriage, and her husband Frank (Bruce Davison) is a drunk and compulsive gambler, as well as having a roving eye, while even golden boy Chat can’t help but be warped by his parents’ problems.

It may well be that a good deal of the plot of “Evergreen” comes from writer-director Zentelis’ own experience, but that doesn’t keep it from being any less maudlin and predictable, and her direction is halting and lackadaisical besides. The cast, moreover, is extremely variable. Land, a high school student in her first film role, is actually quite good, and Fleiss makes Chat a much more likable fellow than his character’s name would suggest; Farmer, meanwhile, puts his bulk and innate friendliness to good use. But Seymour is badly overparted as Kate, offering more empty gesture than genuine emotion, and Cohen is little more than a caricature as the feisty, sharp-tongued grandma. The able Place and Davison deserve far better than they get in the thanklessly exaggerated roles of Chat’s parents. A thoroughly pedestrian production, marked by drab locations and even drabber cinematography from Matthew Clark, completes the unhappy picture.

There’s a hopefulness to its title that “Evergreen” never earns. This is one undernourished, stunted little sapling.