“High school is the bottom. Being a teenager sucks! But that’s the point! Surviving it is the whole point!”
-Christian Slater from “Pump Up The Volume”
High school. Like all of you, I do not miss those years and you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to all that nonsense. The peer pressure, the rejection, the heartache, the unfulfilled longings, and all that pressure that is unloaded on us by our parents when it comes to getting into a good college. Still, I keep wondering what it is like for the kids of today. They get to deal with all the new advances in technology that I never got to deal with back then, but has the way we deal with each other in high school changed? Are people nicer now after the needless tragedies that were Columbine among others? Or have things simply gotten worse? After you see “American Teen,” I think you will agree that things as a teenager and in high school are neither better nor worse. In fact, everything remains the same. There are the cliques, the pressure to get into the right college, and there are those who fit in, and those who don’t and feel endlessly rejected. It’s been close to 15 years since I graduated from high school, and kids still go through the same crap. My step niece is about to start high school, so you can imagine how worried I am about her.
“American Teen” is a documentary directed by Nanette Burstein, and she has previously directed “The Kid Stays In The Picture” and “On The Ropes.” Here, she gives more or less “The Breakfast Club” as a documentary as she follows the lives of various teenagers as they go through their senior year at small town Indiana high school. Nanette has crafted a very absorbing documentary that follows the lives of these people, and how they get through a year that is tough and full of immense pressure for all of them. There is nothing really edgy about this film, and it doesn’t really deal with much with drugs, sex, or school violence. What Nanette succeeds in doing here is taking these stereotypes of the jock, the nerd, the rebel, and the beautiful, and she turns them upside down as she looks closely at the personalities that inhabit them. She has gone on record and said that she considers herself a part of the “John Hughes generation,” and it’s very interesting how she takes that and makes into a movie filled with real people.
Now, I haven’t seen these other documentaries like “The Hills” or “The Real World,” or for that matter, any of the many documentaries that can be seen on PBS. Therefore, I cannot really compare them to this particular film. All the same, I think this one has a lot more to offer those who view, and I think it is also good viewing for those who are in high school now and who think they are the only ones going through what they go through. It’s important for them to know that they are not alone, and that we also need to listen to what they have to say.
Of all the people in this movie, the one that comes across as the most appealing is Hannah Bailey, the liberal rebel of the highly conservative town where this film takes place. She starts off the movie as a free spirit of a person, and deep down, she is the person that many of us really wanted to be like: free spirited and not concerned of how others think of her. However, that part of her is forever shattered when her boyfriend who she was madly in love with, ends up breaking up with her after they have made out. Her emotional devastation is hard to witness as we all have dealt with the harsh pangs of young love. Hannah ends up getting so depressed that she cannot bring herself to go to school in fear of what others will think of her. With her breakup comes a feeling of worthlessness that can easily engulf a young person and change who they are. Throughout the movie, Hannah’s journey is the most interesting, and she is the one that you really root for.
We also have Jake Tusing who is considered the nerd of the picture with a face ravaged with acne that cries out endlessly for a dermatologist. Jake is a guy that you at times feel sorry for, and later cringe at when he talks. A painfully shy kid who still suffers from the emotional scars brought upon him in junior high, we see him be visibly uncomfortable when he is around large groups of people. In many ways, he becomes his own worst enemy as we his defenses go up as his attempts to stick with a girlfriend after he gets one ends up failing. We start to see him push people away before they have the chance to do the same to him. Jake almost threatens to be like Heather Matarazzo’s character from “Welcome To The Dollhouse” as he goes from being likable to unlikable throughout the movie.
Then there is Colin Clemens (no relation to Roger) who is the star of the high school basketball team in a town where basketball is like a religion everyone follows. We see him as his dad keeps pressuring him to make those shots in the game when he is not doing his Elvis impersonation act for the local senior citizens who refuse to believe that he is dead. The amount of pressure comes from the fact that Colin’s family does not have enough money to send him to college, and that his best hope is to impress the college recruiters so that he can get a basketball scholarship. Colin comes across as a good kid whose parental influence leads him to make some crucial and painful mistakes in the film, but who comes around to become a better person and teammate by the film’s end.
Finally, we have the most popular person at the school that is a bitch beyond repair when you cross her. Her name is Megan Krizmanich, and she is the daughter of a prominent local surgeon, the student council vice president, and the homecoming queen. She is what many of us may call “little miss perfect” even if she is far from it. She is like Rachel McAdam’s character of Regina George from “Mean Girls” in that she is one of the most popular people in high school as well as one of the most loathed (from the audience’s perspective anyway). She is under enormous pressure to get accepted to Notre Dame, as all her family members (except for one who died prematurely) have gotten accepted to Notre Dame. I won’t spoil it if she gets in or not, but when she gets the letter from the school, her expression isn’t so much happiness or sadness as it is sheer relief that this part of her life is now past.
One of the taglines of this movie is “which one were you?” But in many ways, you should be able to see a bit of yourself in any of these people irregardless of what high school stereotype you ended up in. The pressures, the heartaches, the isolation; we have all experienced it all. After seeing this movie, you may have felt like you lived through your high school years once again. The high school pecking order on the social ladder has not changed at all, and it remains an emotional boiling pot in the adolescent lives of kids.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
High school. Like all of you, I do not miss those years and you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to all that nonsense. The peer pressure, the rejection, the heartache, the unfulfilled longings, and all that pressure that is unloaded on us by our parents when it comes to getting into a good college. Still, I keep wondering what it is like for the kids of today. They get to deal with all the new advances in technology that I never got to deal with back then, but has the way we deal with each other in high school changed? Are people nicer now after the needless tragedies that were Columbine among others? Or have things simply gotten worse? After you see “American Teen,” I think you will agree that things as a teenager and in high school are neither better nor worse. In fact, everything remains the same. There are the cliques, the pressure to get into the right college, and there are those who fit in, and those who don’t and feel endlessly rejected. It’s been close to 15 years since I graduated from high school, and kids still go through the same crap. My step niece is about to start high school, so you can imagine how worried I am about her.
“American Teen” is a documentary directed by Nanette Burstein, and she has previously directed “The Kid Stays In The Picture” and “On The Ropes.” Here, she gives more or less “The Breakfast Club” as a documentary as she follows the lives of various teenagers as they go through their senior year at small town Indiana high school. Nanette has crafted a very absorbing documentary that follows the lives of these people, and how they get through a year that is tough and full of immense pressure for all of them. There is nothing really edgy about this film, and it doesn’t really deal with much with drugs, sex, or school violence. What Nanette succeeds in doing here is taking these stereotypes of the jock, the nerd, the rebel, and the beautiful, and she turns them upside down as she looks closely at the personalities that inhabit them. She has gone on record and said that she considers herself a part of the “John Hughes generation,” and it’s very interesting how she takes that and makes into a movie filled with real people.
Now, I haven’t seen these other documentaries like “The Hills” or “The Real World,” or for that matter, any of the many documentaries that can be seen on PBS. Therefore, I cannot really compare them to this particular film. All the same, I think this one has a lot more to offer those who view, and I think it is also good viewing for those who are in high school now and who think they are the only ones going through what they go through. It’s important for them to know that they are not alone, and that we also need to listen to what they have to say.
Of all the people in this movie, the one that comes across as the most appealing is Hannah Bailey, the liberal rebel of the highly conservative town where this film takes place. She starts off the movie as a free spirit of a person, and deep down, she is the person that many of us really wanted to be like: free spirited and not concerned of how others think of her. However, that part of her is forever shattered when her boyfriend who she was madly in love with, ends up breaking up with her after they have made out. Her emotional devastation is hard to witness as we all have dealt with the harsh pangs of young love. Hannah ends up getting so depressed that she cannot bring herself to go to school in fear of what others will think of her. With her breakup comes a feeling of worthlessness that can easily engulf a young person and change who they are. Throughout the movie, Hannah’s journey is the most interesting, and she is the one that you really root for.
We also have Jake Tusing who is considered the nerd of the picture with a face ravaged with acne that cries out endlessly for a dermatologist. Jake is a guy that you at times feel sorry for, and later cringe at when he talks. A painfully shy kid who still suffers from the emotional scars brought upon him in junior high, we see him be visibly uncomfortable when he is around large groups of people. In many ways, he becomes his own worst enemy as we his defenses go up as his attempts to stick with a girlfriend after he gets one ends up failing. We start to see him push people away before they have the chance to do the same to him. Jake almost threatens to be like Heather Matarazzo’s character from “Welcome To The Dollhouse” as he goes from being likable to unlikable throughout the movie.
Then there is Colin Clemens (no relation to Roger) who is the star of the high school basketball team in a town where basketball is like a religion everyone follows. We see him as his dad keeps pressuring him to make those shots in the game when he is not doing his Elvis impersonation act for the local senior citizens who refuse to believe that he is dead. The amount of pressure comes from the fact that Colin’s family does not have enough money to send him to college, and that his best hope is to impress the college recruiters so that he can get a basketball scholarship. Colin comes across as a good kid whose parental influence leads him to make some crucial and painful mistakes in the film, but who comes around to become a better person and teammate by the film’s end.
Finally, we have the most popular person at the school that is a bitch beyond repair when you cross her. Her name is Megan Krizmanich, and she is the daughter of a prominent local surgeon, the student council vice president, and the homecoming queen. She is what many of us may call “little miss perfect” even if she is far from it. She is like Rachel McAdam’s character of Regina George from “Mean Girls” in that she is one of the most popular people in high school as well as one of the most loathed (from the audience’s perspective anyway). She is under enormous pressure to get accepted to Notre Dame, as all her family members (except for one who died prematurely) have gotten accepted to Notre Dame. I won’t spoil it if she gets in or not, but when she gets the letter from the school, her expression isn’t so much happiness or sadness as it is sheer relief that this part of her life is now past.
One of the taglines of this movie is “which one were you?” But in many ways, you should be able to see a bit of yourself in any of these people irregardless of what high school stereotype you ended up in. The pressures, the heartaches, the isolation; we have all experienced it all. After seeing this movie, you may have felt like you lived through your high school years once again. The high school pecking order on the social ladder has not changed at all, and it remains an emotional boiling pot in the adolescent lives of kids.
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
-Kurt Russell from “Escape From LA”
I wanted to get to know these kids more and more as the film went on, and I wanted them (the majority of them anyway) to succeed in what they wanted to do, and I wanted them to be happy. Happiness can be in such short supply when you are in high school at times. The movie is filled with animated interludes which seek to illustrate the inner lives of its main characters. With Jake, we see him as the hero of those “Legend of Zelda” games he loves to play, rescuing the princess who he longs to have as a girlfriend. With Colin, we see his dream of playing on an NCAA team when he gets out of college. Hannah’s animation interlude illustrates her painful post-break up existence as she feels so differently about herself, and how she is afraid that she will end up like her mother who is manic depressive. Then you have Megan’s moment which you can’t help but laugh at some as she sees Notre Dame as this heavenly existence where she can meet a diverse crowd of people who are nothing like the people she picks on at her high school.
I saw this movie at the Arclight Cinemas in Los Angeles, and this is a great movie to watch with an audience because everyone in the audience (including you) has a strong emotional reaction to what is going on throughout. We share in Hannah’s heartbreak, and in her triumphs as she ends being the real hero of the movie. We cringe and laugh at the socially awkward Jake as he stumbles through conversations with potential girlfriends. When he talks, you can’t help but put your hands in your face and shake your face. With Megan, you feel a hatred and resentment that is eased up a little as you get to know her a little better. All the same, she reminds me of that one blonde cheerleader who interrupted the Shakespeare class by saying:
“THERE IS A RUN IN MY NYLONS!”
All that said, “American Teen” is by no means a perfect documentary. It does feel a bit staged here and there, and it probably was in some cases. Also, while the movie does get deep into its subjects, part of me wished that it went a little deeper. We see that Hannah’s best friend is gay guy who is always there for her when she her self-esteem plummets, but we never really get to him and how he deals with living in a very conservative town. I also wanted to see more of the adults in the movie, and how they raised their children. We complain about the way kids act, but a lot of that has to do with the way their parents spoil them rotten. Trust me, this was a big problem in the town that I grew up in.
Granted, Nanette wanted to this film to be shown from as much of the teenagers’ lives as possible, but the adults factor into this more than we see here. While the movie does show the relationship that Colin has with his Elvis impersonating dad, we don’t get that as much with the other kids. Megan ends up committing a slanderous act of vandalism that she does end up getting busted for, but her dad isn’t so much mad at her for doing it as he is with her not being able to keep from being caught (wha???). You have to wonder what kind of values these kids are being instilled with from their parents because they are not always healthy.
We also see Hannah’s manic depressive mother battling with her over Hannah’s decision to move to San Francisco to pursue a career in TV/Film. Hannah is so determined to get out of Indiana and lead a life that is anything but mundane, and we want to see her accomplish that no matter what the odds are. But her mother ends up telling her that she is “not special.” This is one of the movie’s most wounding moments, and I think that any parent who tells their child that should be bitch-slapped. The world is tough enough as it is without our parents breaking us down like that. That is so wrong!
There is also a good deal of bleeping out of language in this movie. The movie is rated PG-13 despite the f-word being mentioned a couple of times. If the MPAA thinks that they are trying to protect the kids old enough to see this movie from the bad words contained in it, then they have failed. You wouldn’t believe the amount of bad language that I heard in junior high and in high school. It dwarfs the language heard in this movie easily by comparison. It reminds me of Roger Ebert’s argument that “The Breakfast Club” should have been PG-13 instead of R because he felt that the movie was more than appropriate for teenagers. I couldn’t agree more, and the beeping out of “bad” language is ridiculous and only draws more attention to what the MPAA is trying to suppress.
Still, despite its flaws, I still really liked “American Teen” for what it is, and for opening themselves in a way that many others would have been scared off from doing. Whatever you think about this movie, you have to give these kids that because what they did will forever be captured on celluloid and will be burned into our memories forever, regardless of whether they want us to see them differently from how they came across here. It will be interesting to see a follow up to this movie on the kids lives several years from now, and how they have moved on from those brutally painful years. I’m not talking so much about the effect of the movie itself, but the effect their years in high school have on their lives today. They have nowhere to go but up at this point.
Go Hannah!
I wanted to get to know these kids more and more as the film went on, and I wanted them (the majority of them anyway) to succeed in what they wanted to do, and I wanted them to be happy. Happiness can be in such short supply when you are in high school at times. The movie is filled with animated interludes which seek to illustrate the inner lives of its main characters. With Jake, we see him as the hero of those “Legend of Zelda” games he loves to play, rescuing the princess who he longs to have as a girlfriend. With Colin, we see his dream of playing on an NCAA team when he gets out of college. Hannah’s animation interlude illustrates her painful post-break up existence as she feels so differently about herself, and how she is afraid that she will end up like her mother who is manic depressive. Then you have Megan’s moment which you can’t help but laugh at some as she sees Notre Dame as this heavenly existence where she can meet a diverse crowd of people who are nothing like the people she picks on at her high school.
I saw this movie at the Arclight Cinemas in Los Angeles, and this is a great movie to watch with an audience because everyone in the audience (including you) has a strong emotional reaction to what is going on throughout. We share in Hannah’s heartbreak, and in her triumphs as she ends being the real hero of the movie. We cringe and laugh at the socially awkward Jake as he stumbles through conversations with potential girlfriends. When he talks, you can’t help but put your hands in your face and shake your face. With Megan, you feel a hatred and resentment that is eased up a little as you get to know her a little better. All the same, she reminds me of that one blonde cheerleader who interrupted the Shakespeare class by saying:
“THERE IS A RUN IN MY NYLONS!”
All that said, “American Teen” is by no means a perfect documentary. It does feel a bit staged here and there, and it probably was in some cases. Also, while the movie does get deep into its subjects, part of me wished that it went a little deeper. We see that Hannah’s best friend is gay guy who is always there for her when she her self-esteem plummets, but we never really get to him and how he deals with living in a very conservative town. I also wanted to see more of the adults in the movie, and how they raised their children. We complain about the way kids act, but a lot of that has to do with the way their parents spoil them rotten. Trust me, this was a big problem in the town that I grew up in.
Granted, Nanette wanted to this film to be shown from as much of the teenagers’ lives as possible, but the adults factor into this more than we see here. While the movie does show the relationship that Colin has with his Elvis impersonating dad, we don’t get that as much with the other kids. Megan ends up committing a slanderous act of vandalism that she does end up getting busted for, but her dad isn’t so much mad at her for doing it as he is with her not being able to keep from being caught (wha???). You have to wonder what kind of values these kids are being instilled with from their parents because they are not always healthy.
We also see Hannah’s manic depressive mother battling with her over Hannah’s decision to move to San Francisco to pursue a career in TV/Film. Hannah is so determined to get out of Indiana and lead a life that is anything but mundane, and we want to see her accomplish that no matter what the odds are. But her mother ends up telling her that she is “not special.” This is one of the movie’s most wounding moments, and I think that any parent who tells their child that should be bitch-slapped. The world is tough enough as it is without our parents breaking us down like that. That is so wrong!
There is also a good deal of bleeping out of language in this movie. The movie is rated PG-13 despite the f-word being mentioned a couple of times. If the MPAA thinks that they are trying to protect the kids old enough to see this movie from the bad words contained in it, then they have failed. You wouldn’t believe the amount of bad language that I heard in junior high and in high school. It dwarfs the language heard in this movie easily by comparison. It reminds me of Roger Ebert’s argument that “The Breakfast Club” should have been PG-13 instead of R because he felt that the movie was more than appropriate for teenagers. I couldn’t agree more, and the beeping out of “bad” language is ridiculous and only draws more attention to what the MPAA is trying to suppress.
Still, despite its flaws, I still really liked “American Teen” for what it is, and for opening themselves in a way that many others would have been scared off from doing. Whatever you think about this movie, you have to give these kids that because what they did will forever be captured on celluloid and will be burned into our memories forever, regardless of whether they want us to see them differently from how they came across here. It will be interesting to see a follow up to this movie on the kids lives several years from now, and how they have moved on from those brutally painful years. I’m not talking so much about the effect of the movie itself, but the effect their years in high school have on their lives today. They have nowhere to go but up at this point.
Go Hannah!
***1/2 out of ****
"What Nanette succeeds in doing here is taking these stereotypes of the jock, the nerd, the rebel, and the beautiful, and she turns them upside down as she looks closely at the personalities that inhabit them."
Exactly. I really liked the doc.