Review #5 – American Teen

Last night the second installment of Cinema CNC's Fall Season 2008 took place. On display was American Teen, Nanette Burstein's latest effort. It was well-received by our audience, which was decently-sized, considering that it is the Thanksgiving weekend.

The film is an entertaining depiction of life for a very specific set of teens: white, middle-class, middle-American youngsters with few enough external anxieties to stimulate them that they can concentrate on themselves [as opposed to kids with urban or geographic disadvantages... the inner-city or extreme remoteness, for instance]. You can probably hear some elements of my reluctance to fully endorse this effort; while an interesting film, these folks can hardly be held up as representative of all American teens... this is no Up Series [Michael Apted's brilliant growing-up-British document]. There is one black face in this film, and no Hispanic, Asian, or anybody "other" to give a nod to balance, other than the fact that some of the kids live in big houses [upper middle-class] and some kids live in small houses [lower middle-class], whooee.

Having voiced this concern, I will now reveal that I found the film oddly effective; I experienced being transported almost 30 years in time, remembering what is was like to be in high school: I felt the picked-on kids' pain; I felt indignant at the actions of some and gloried in the bravery of others; I developed a crush on Hannah; I looked around for someone smaller to stuff into a locker... all in all, I identified with this film because I lived it. Sneaky, eh?

The four main characters are an interesting mix: Megan, the popular-girl/ colossal bitch; Colin, the jock nice-guy; Jake, the acne-suffering geek; and Hannah, the outsider/ alt. girl. These depictions, of course, will strike a chord with any reader who reads this and attended high school in North America... we know these people... we are these people. And they are more complex than they appear... Megan keeps layering on the meanness, but an event from her past mitigates [but does not excuse] some of her actions... Colin, the thinnest-developed of the characters, has a dad who, when he isn't pressuring Colin to do well at basketball so that he can get a college scholarship, performs as an Elvis impersonator at the local Ramada... Jake might be geeky, but he isn't nerdy; he's oddly brave in his quest to meet girls, despite his heart-rending anxiety about his spotty complexion... and Hannah is a free-spirited, smart, and engaging young woman, who, despite her cranky mother's telling her "you're not special", is so obviously special, and so obviously constrained by living in Warsaw, Indiana, that one cannot help but cheer for her... did I tell you I had a crush? Of course, it is revealed [and glossed over] that she is under medical supervision for her dark thoughts, and it is alluded that her mom has a psychological inability to cope, but in this soup of homogenized middle-america, this character is refreshing.

Having expressed concern about the over-all representativeness of this movie, I must also express concern at the stageyness of it. The characters are so aware of the camera, indeed so obviously playing to it, that one is a bit uncomfortable at times. Some of the scenes appear to be "historical recreations", because the actions are too coordinated and the camera is in precisely the right spot too often for any other explaination [except, perhaps, clairvoyance]. This effort might make the film more genuinely entertaining, but it detracts from the notion that we are seeing the inside of a world that, even if we were once insiders, is unfamiliar to us. One gets the impression that we are seeing "teens for foreigners", much like one might go to a Flamenco show in Madrid... it is real, in-as-much-as they are really dancing and really wearing the outfits, and for 30 euros, including your first glass of wine, you can experience it, too.

There are real teen actions here, too: hanging out with friends, parties, school, good actions, bad actions, cruelty, triumph... and in many ways this is enough to redeem this film. The director spent a whole year in Warsaw, filming hundreds of hours of action, which gives us an insight into the thoughts and actions of a specific group of young people. The fact that I had a shudder [or two] of recognition tells me that, for all the artifice, this movie tells important truths.