07/24/08
Text: Chau Tu
For obvious reasons—puberty! angst! those incredibly unbearable awkward moments!—high school has long been a go-to setting for many a film script, and, thanks to John Hughes and Amy Heckerling, it's even made for some classics. The next movie to come in line is Nanette Burstein's American Teen, a documentary that attempts to play off of those high school stereotypes made famous by prior films, but in turn creates a fascinating portrait of aspiration and growth that truly captures the essence of teenage-dom.
Set in a small conservative town in Indiana, the film focuses on five teenagers living through their senior year at Warsaw High School. The subjects are generally disconnected from one another (except, of course, for one particular cross-clique foray), with some living wealthier, careless lives and others striving through more difficult struggles in lower-class situations. But it isn't particularly economic class statuses that separate these students, but rather social class.
Narrating the film at its beginning is Hannah, the film-appointed "rebel" stereotype. So she’s not exactly Bender, carrying around a pocketknife and intimidating everyone as they pass, but she’s got a downright genuine determination to get the hell out of Warsaw and make something of herself. Quirky and artsy, she doesn't feel like she belongs in small town America and longs for film school in California, somewhere she feels she can be herself and not be thought of as “weird.” As the audience watches her struggle on, her unyielding honesty brings her true substance, and she becomes a wonderfully relatable protagonist.
Which isn't to say that there are really any antagonists in this film, even though it is probably assumed to be Megan, Warsaw's popular "princess." And surely, Megan doesn't go through the film without showing an unlikable side to her, especially in some truly immature and cringe-worthy antics (“I know it’s wrong, but I just believe in getting even”). Still, Burstein manages to burrow deep to find the pressures and hardships that seem to shape Megan's tough outer shell, and one can't help but root for her in the end.
This ability to make audiences feel for these subjects through and through, by revealing their deepest, darkest thoughts and desires, is what American Teen accomplishes best. The use of the high school stereotypes as a hook and marketing tactic may pull viewers in, but once the film begins, nearly all preconceptions about these teenagers can immediately be set aside, when their personalities really come to light and it's easy to see there is so much more to this than capturing types or making statements.
So many emotions run throughout the movie, from those quirky Hannah moments ("There are so many girls who would give their left boob to get a date with him") to every grueling shot that basketball star Colin misses, that at the end, one can wonder how perfectly set up everything seems to be. And yet, there is little to the film that seems forced or stretched. There are some great storylines that come about over the year, fueled by some incredibly wonderful characters (can it get anymore awkward than "geek" Jake?), but what is high school without the overwhelming lust, the fantastic triumphs, the embarrassing moments—the drama? By capturing all this, with nothing else but the use of some amazingly honest teenagers, American Teen has created a refreshing portrait of high school that hits straight at the heart and proves that those teenage years are still just as interesting beyond the stereotypes.
American Teen official website
