American Teen (2008)

 
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PostPosted: Tue Sep 06, 2011 4:46 pm    Post subject: American Teen (2008) Reply with quote

This is a documentary though there’s been some speculation among reviewers that the producer rigged some of the scenes. It spotlights four seniors in the Warsaw, Indiana, high school.

Warsaw–what we see of it–looks like a prosperous town. The kids get whatever they want, evidently. They’re addicted to text messaging on their cellphones. Oddly, we don’t see them studying, but then that probably went out decades ago.

They’re busily deciding on their futures, and here is where the parents come in, in a big way.

Colin, the basketball star, becomes a pitiable figure when we see how his father shamelessly pushes him to excel at the sport–the idea being that college recruiters will be watching him play, and his whole future depends on his getting into college on the basis of his basketball skills.

It looks as if he’s about to crack under the pressure from his chums and his father–he keeps missing baskets–but he rallies, and his future is assured.

The general bitchiness of the girls is appalling, but it’s easy to forget the high school years. Maybe girls were just as bitchy in my teen years too, though we did have fewer expensive toys augmenting our bitchiness.

One of the bitchiest is Megan, who thinks nothing of slapping a male friend in anger when he won’t leave the premises. I have trouble working up much empathy for Megan even after finding out that her older sister killed herself only a year or two before.

Megan, of course, gets what she wants (a spot at Notre Dame), and we see her loading up a Mercedes with belongings and driving off to Notre Dame after having graduated from high school.

Hannah is another teen whose parents are being obstructive. She considers herself an artistic misfit in the school and wants desperately to go to San Francisco State for college. Her parents disapprove of the idea. They’re worried about her being so far away.

No huge tragedies happen. Nobody gets pregnant or drops out of school or commits a crime. Still, the movie was disturbing and depressing.
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