Movie Review:
American Teen
Rated by 2 members
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for some strong language, sexual material, some drinking and brief smoking -- all involving teens.
Recommended for ages 13 and up.
Run Time: 95 minutes
Quick Take: Glimpses of the inner lives of adolescents will be loved by the high-school set, though might make their parents cringe.
American Teen Documentary Offers Plenty to Identify With For Teens
When I think back on high school, well, the whole thing was like a documentary.
Not that my life was so exciting or earth-shattering or anything like that, but I think those teen years are best defined by feeling like you're the star of your own movie -- and not always in a good way. You live outside yourself. Every interaction, conversation, or flirtation with your peers feels like its own scene or -- at the worst moments -- like an ill-conceived football play. You do one thing, but replay the moments in your head, like a game film, wondering whether you should have dodged left instead of right. You're a big bundle of confusion and nerves and self-doubt and horomones and every little thing you do is a chance for your ultra-touchy self to be just a little more battle-damaged.
So no doubt, American Teen will appeal to high schoolers, and probably anyone with the faintest remembrance of adolescence.
Following the lives of five high school students in Warsaw, Indiana for their entire school year (in 2005-06 for anyone who's counting), director Nanette Burstein boils down more than 1,000 hours of footage into a 95-minute film that tells the stories of five teens selected for seemingly fitting into a certain stereotype. The geek, Jake Tusing, is in the band, plays video games, and really wants a girlfriend. The artsy rebel, Hannah Bailey, can't wait to get out of her conservative town -- she's desperate to finish high school and move to California. The jock, Colin Clemons, is under enormous pressure to land an athletic scholarship -- or go to the army. The princess, Megan Krizmanich, is Miss Extra-Curricular Activity -- and more than a little cruel when things don't go her way. The heartthrob, Mitch Reinholt, is Mr. Popularity, but starts to fall for a girl -- Hannah -- who travels with a different crowd.
The film has plenty of shocking moments, and plenty of stuff parents probably won't want to imagine their kid doing or saying. But it also has a fair amount of heart, and I think everyone in the audience will choose one of the five subjects to cheer on.
Director Burstein was cheering for Hannah Bailey, I believe. Hannah's narration opens the movie, and she wants to move out of her town and be a filmmaker. While I could identify with Hannah's non-conformist ways, I found myself cheering for Jake Tusing's self-professed geek, and Colin Clemons' all-American jock. Tusing wants a date but -- painfully shy and on the nerdy-slash-invisible side -- it's hard for him to meet girls. Despite his social anxieties, he decides to start asking girls out, in his awkwardly charming way, and you can't help but enjoy his bluntness, his self-deprecating ways, and his dead-pan delivery. As for Colin, well, the reasons I rooted for him were different: I admired this star basketball player flat-out telling his father that, even if he couldn't go to college on a scholarship, he would not be joining the Army. "I know I can't kill another person," he tells his dad. He's a sweet-seeming guy, and you believe him. So, when the film takes us to Colin's last, big basketball game -- with college scouts in the stands -- the moment is one of the most pivotal and exciting there is: College or the military -- it's the kind of high-school drama that actually rings true as a life-or-death situation.
What's best about American Teen is that it is entertaining, and not just enlightening. Some documentary fans might criticize Burstein for not going deeper into the teens' social and economic classes, religious backgrounds, and sexuality but I was just fine with her giving The Breakfast Club treatment to real-life stories. In the end, what American Teen might do best is show us -- in the same way the aforementioned John Hughes' movie did in the 1980s -- how similar kids' experiences can be, no matter their rung on the social ladder.
All told, American Teen might disappoint high-schoolers looking for the over-the-top shock factor of "reality" TV or other high-school fare, like Gossip Girl. But it also helps assure them that adolescence is painful for everyone and that life does indeed get better after high school, no instant replay required. As anyone far enough out of the high school game knows, once was enough, thank you.
Kids Will Like:
Any teen who feels like they're the only one with problems and drama in their life could do well to watch this movie. Teens hooked on shows like Laguna Beach and The Hills, should flock to this doc -- a sort of abbreviated reality show -- if only to see how the really real, day-to-day lives are different from the realities of Hills stars like Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag.
Parents Will Like:
If you can keep yourself from worrying about your own child while watching this movie, you'll be in good shape and will probably even enjoy a little nostalgia for your teen years: When else was life so chock-full of ups and downs, losses and victories, successes and failures -- all of which felt like the beginning or end of the world? After spending time with teens, you'll realize that you might miss the roller coaster of adolescence but like the relative ease of adulthood -- and knowing what really matters and what doesn't.
