American Teen is the terrific new documentary from Nanette Burstein. It follows the lives and loves, heartbreak and triumphs of five typical high school seniors growing up in a place called Warsaw, Indiana. They follow some teen movie archetypes. There’s the mean girl, the jock, the band geek, the outsider, and the heartthrob. What makes American Teen stand out is the twists and turns revealed as the film goes along. Initially skeptical of its ultra-slick MTV packaging, American Teen starts to chip away at your doubts and reservations. It’s a funny and sometimes touching look at life in right-wing, middle America. Yes, some of the scenes are staged (or at least, rehearsed) for maximum dramatic effect, but much of the documentary strikes the viewer as truth, and better yet, there’s someone we can all relate to shown in the film, in one way or the other.
There were two standouts for me. The adorable, liberal Hannah. A fiercely intelligent and witty outsider who struggles to overcome self-doubt and crippling depression. She’s the voice of the film for many viewers. Commenting in biting fashion on growing up in a right-wing Hell, Hannah is the perfect foil to follow through the film. Then there’s the acne-riddled Jake, he has bad skin and even worse self-loathing. He can’t get a date and even though his intelligence shines through, its just heart-breaking watching him wander through life. After making a failed joke on a botched date, his date sits there across the table from him, staring into space. The camera lingers long enough to make you cringe, before the scene gets entirely too cruel. American Teen really does have a feel for the cruelty of life for many highschool kids. Rich bitch on wheels Megan (who tears into her scenes like she’s auditioning for Real World, Warsaw) may be the villain of the story, but she has just enough depth to make her not quite the packaged villain we first see as the documentary opens. The nice-guy jock Colin Clemens (with a lantern, Jay Len0-esque jaw) seems impossibly calm and nice on the surface, but he’s fighting the pressures and expectations of his father (and the entire, basketball-obsessed town). The vapid (if, also seemingly nice) blonde haired jock Mitch Reinholt looks like he stepped right out of a Gus Van Sant movie, and is sure to be a favorite of movie critic Rex Reed.
American Teen isn’t perfect, or even especially deep. To linger on that point though, (as so many old white dudes, who call themselves movie critics) are doing seems to be missing the point. When you’re a teenager, even the smallest problems seem huge, and the larger problems are life and death. American Teen is slickly packaged (MTV editing, a fast pace, hipster animated sequences and graphics), but it has the one thing missing from almost every major Hollywood blockbuster these days, a beating heart.
Film Grade: A-
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