|
|
The documentary hit of Sundance 2008, American Teen offers up irresistible archetypes of everybody's high school years: the jock, the nerd, the prom queen. You can't blame filmmaker Nanette Burstein (The Kid Stays in the Picture) for focusing on these easily-relatable figures--they pop off the screen. She spent the school year with the senior class at Warsaw High in Warsaw, Indiana, a close-quarters town where, it seems, the lives of the adults are not so different from the lives of the teens. You'll hiss pampered princess Megan, whose behavior verges on the sadistic; you'll roll your eyes at geeky Jake, whose way with the girls does not measure up to his fantasy world of knights and fair ladies; you'll feel for Colin, whose shot at going to college is quite literally his jump shot. Most of all you'll be drawn in by Hannah, the typical creative-misfit type, whose gamine charm is subject to alarming depressions. The movie succeeds at its goal, which is to make all this familiar material come to life (even if an average year of The Real World accomplishes similar things). Purists might have more qualms about the extent to which the kids' actions occasionally feel motivated by the camera's presence, and how the film crew decided to let some of the more serious decisions unfold. Such unease probably won't deflect the general good time, nor the sense--for anyone over 18--of "thank god that's over." --Robert Horton
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
