Lila likes to portray herself as similarly experienced, when in reality her primary exposure to sex is tagging along on Chiara and Patrick's outings and being an awkward bystander to the couple's public displays of affection.

At one point, Sammy's friends start making crude jokes about Lila giving all of the guys simultaneous oral sex.

The film ends with the performance of Lila and Chiara's dance team, with visuals that underscore the rocky terrain of adolescence.

[10] She noted Hittman and cinematographer Sean Porter "remind us of the dangers of teenage desire and...the vast gulf between male and female notions of romantic connection".

[10] Of the film, Inkoo Kang of the Los Angeles Times said, "Rarely has the zone between girlhood and womanhood been captured with such urgent honesty than in Eliza Hittman’s superb teen drama...Hittman’s debut isn’t just a brilliantly tactile study of the mounting sexual curiosity and frustration of 14-year-old Lila (Gina Piersanti); it’s also an important landmark in the oft-ignored subgenre of realistic movies about female adolescence".