Now a “provocative” and “impressive” (<I >Variety</I>) film from director Gia Coppola (Francis Ford Coppola’s granddaughter)—starring Emma Roberts, James Franco, Nat Wolff, and Val Kilmer—the fiction debut from James Franco that <I >Vogue</I> called “compelling and gutsy.”<br><br>James Franco’s story collection traces the lives of a group of teenagers as they experiment with vices of all kinds, struggle with their families and one another, and succumb to self-destructive, often heartless nihilism. In “Lockheed” a young woman’s summer—spent working a dull internship—is suddenly upended by a spectacular incident of violence at a house party. In “American History” a high school freshman attempts to impress a girl with a realistic portrayal of a slave owner during a classroom skit—only to have his feigned bigotry avenged. In “I Could Kill Someone,” a lonely teenager buys a gun with the aim of killing his high school tormentor, but begins to wonder about his bully’s own inner life. <BR> <BR>These “spare and riveting” (<I >O, The Oprah Magazine</I>) stories are a compelling portrait of lives on the rough fringes of youth.<I> Palo Alto</I> is, “a collection of beautifully written stories” (<I >Kirkus Reviews</I>, starred review) that “capture with perfect pitch the impossible exhilaration, the inevitable downbeatness, and the pure confusion of being an adolescent” (<I >Elle</I>).