Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageAmerican Teen (2008)
Director: Nanette Burstein
Movie review
From Time Out London
This documentary, with its slick surface and emotional buzz moments, follows five final-year teens at an Indiana high school who are filmed doing what teens do: preening, flirting, playing, working and worrying. It’s very MTV in style and might pass muster on the box, but as cinema it feels like a six-part ‘reality’ television series chopped into 102 minutes. You half expect it to be bookended by music videos and interrupted with ads for hair products and mobile phones.Director Nanette Burstein (‘The Kid Stays in the Picture’) picks her victims because they conform to stereotypes: Megan is the school’s ‘biggest bitch’, popular and over-achieving; Colin is a basketball star, likeable and determined; Hannah is the pale-faced rebel who wants to move to California and make movies; Mitch is the handsome jock; and Jake is the spotty geek who can’t find a girl. There’s a whiff of artifice to the film, not because anything is made up, but because Burstein is happy to frame real events like fiction. So when pupils forward to other students’ mobiles a photo of a peer with her breasts out, we’re party to the reactions of many of the recipients.
Burstein is also fond of employing tacky establishing shots of people’s houses to make us feel like we’re in sitcom territory and many of the film’s ‘situations’, whether a house party or a couple hanging out, don’t feel natural at all. It has its pleasures, not least because pantomime villains, heroes and underdogs emerge and there are hints of truths, both sad and happy, which you wish were explored deeper. It’s a lightly amusing film but it’s also an unchallenging one which reinforces presumptions about kids rather than surprising with new insights. It floats in the shallow end of filmmaking.
Author: Dave Calhoun
Time Out London Issue 2011, 5 – 11 March, 2009
Cast & crew
Director: Nanette Burstein
Genre(s): Documentaries
Rated: 15
Duration: 102 mins
UK Release: Mar 6 2009
US Release: Jul 25 2008
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Ang Lee talks 'Taking Woodstock'
Ang Lee talks to Tom Huddleston about his tale of the men behind history’s greatest music festival
Hippies who work for The Man
To celebrate George Clooney comedy 'The Men who Stare at Goats', we look back at six memorable onscreen hippies who fought the system from within
Roland Emmerich's guide to disaster movies
Ahead of the release of '2012', Roland Emmerich offers his ten tips on creating the perfect global catastrophe
Grant Heslov: interview
Grant Heslov, director of 'The Men who Stare at Goats' talks about his old pal George Clooney, his interest in the paranormal, and his fond memories of working on 'Happy Days'
The Coen brothers discuss 'A Serious Man'
Masters of contrary comedy, Joel and Ethan Coen have struck gold again with their latest, ‘A Serious Man’
Ten inspirations behind 'Avatar'?
Time Out ponders the influences behind James Cameron's anticipated space-opera on the basis of the trailer
Michael Haneke: The man behind the menace
From Cannes to Munich to London, Dave Calhoun tours Michael Haneke's Palme d'Or winner, 'The White Ribbon'
How Jane Campion brought John Keats back to life
Time Out gets Romantic with the ‘difficult’ New Zealander about her new film, 'Bright Star'
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now