First of all let me say: seriously?! One of our assignments is to (technically) do a movie review of American Teen?! HONESTLY!! YES! Interdisciplinary is now officially the best class ever. Period.
*Ahem* on to the task at hand: American Teen.
I've been following this movie for awhile. I'm big on the Sundance Film Festival, and the second it premiered there I did a ton of research about the film and waited (impatiently) for it to come out on DVD. Up until this point though, I hadn't seen the whole film.
Boasting that it's this generations Breakfast Club, the movie set the bar high for itself, and over all I think that it basically achieved what it was trying to do: show regular everyday teenagers, one from each major stereotype, in an effort to show every kid out there that everybody has problems, and that life is basically tough all around.
I really, really liked the movie, but out of all the kids, I have to say that the one that I sympathized the most with was Hannah (who saw that one coming?). Sadly, right from the very start when she was boasting about how much she loved her boyfriend of 2 years, I knew that *it* was about to hit the fan. And I was right.
From the start, Hannah is dumped in probably the worst way possible, and I know that every single girl in the room (hopefully most of the guys, too) all had their hearts deflate a little when they heard that after sleeping together for the first time, Hannah and guywhodeservestogethitbyabus were no more. After missing school (and I mean A LOT) of school, she almost fails her last year of high school, then falls for the 'heart throb' Mitch, only to have him 'text message break up'. Let me tell you something, fellow gifteds:
(skip to 2:40 for the meat of the video..warning: not appropriate for school).
Anyways, along with all of this she has a dream of going to San Francisco so she can really live in a world different from the conformist, red, Christian one that she grew up in. She also wants to make movies, which yeah, did really strike a chord with me, so I related to her the most.
I was really happy to see that she did end up in San Fran, and was even more pleased to learn that after 8 months she went back to the East Coast and was studying film. I'd also like to mention that I 'became a fan' of her on facebook. Oh yeah, I'm soooo bordering on stalker-ish right now.
All in all, a great movie with a likable (and hate-able aka MEGAN) characters that weren't just characters: they were real which gave the movie a lot of depth that you wouldn't get from a movie that followed the exact same script, plot line, etc but used actors. Although art mimics reality, only reality can capture the ultimate spirit of reality.
Overall, a thumbs up / 4 out of 5 stars.
PS I would also like to state that this is one of my shortest blogs ever. A rather tremendous occasion for me, I must say.
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