The Hottest State is an unusual movie. While, for the most part, you will only really see two characters the entire time, you never get the feeling that it is slow. Instead, the interaction and chemistry between Will (Mark Webber) and his new girlfriend Sara (Catalina Sandino Moreno) keeps the film moving at a surprising pace, which is good since the film is about a new love that burns hot and passionately early and seems to fizzle out quickly, much to Mark's dismay, of course.

A month or so before turning 21, Mark meets up with Sara and the two hit it off immediately. Mark, an actor just getting started, seems to be compelled to remake his parents' relationship (at least how he idealized it before they split up when he was really young). The story goes that his father told his mother a joke when they met and she fell madly in love with him, so his typical approach is to tell jokes when he meets women. Sara seems to fall for the ploy and the two become inseparable. The pair leaves Connecticut and spend a week in Mexico for one of the best times in either character's life. But something seems to happen and Sara believes that they shouldn't be together anymore.

Unable to believe how a relationship he thought would last forever, could be over before his next birthday, Mark can't help calling Sara five or six times in a row and leaving message after message, or yelling out to her from the street next to her building. After all, "How can you forget someone who lives just eight blocks away." Eventually Mark decides to figure out what is wrong with him and journeys down to Texas to visit his father. He will leave the state with a new view of himself and a much more mature outlook on life.

Both Webber and Moreno play their parts well, both are believable and you can't help but wonder if Sara does still love Mark, and just what will Mark do for the woman he is sure should be his forever. The other aspect of this film that stands out, and I don't normally mention this because it is typically lost on me, is the film's score. With musicians like Willie Nelson, Cat Power and Bright Eyes, the movie's background music sets the feelings for various parts of the relationship and locations perfectly.

Written and directed by Ethan Hawke, this movie has a very indie feel to it and really doesn't seem to fit into mainstream media, and because of that, it will probably have more of a cult following than anything else. Either way, it is good to watch if you want to see someone fall hopelessly in love and then work through the feelings that are left when that love gets denied.