Abbie 07/31/2008 7:42:00 AM
Miller's partisan review of "American Teen" amazed me.
Here is his review, in full.
Director Nanette Burstein is so intent here on making a nonfiction version of The Breakfast Club that she erases every trace of documentary convention for most of this pleasing but ultimately unconvincing film. You can imagine what the teen focus groups told Paramount Vantage ("OMG! Documentaries are, like, so totally dull! Those are for school!"), and I'm sure the studio executives held up Frederick Wiseman's High School as Exhibit A in What Movie Not To Make. Mission accomplished. Burstein finds her Molly Ringwald figure in Hannah Bailey, who provides a suspiciously scripted-sounding voiceover introduction to the film. (Did she write it herself? Did John Hughes write Ringwald's lines?) Clearly, we are meant to root for Hannah, who wants to leave her Indiana hick town to become an artist�or, better yet, a filmmaker. She and the half-dozen other principals (jock, dork, deb, etc.) were weaned on The Real World, and they have no problem signing consent forms, wearing radio mikes, and discussing their sex lives on camera. There is no such thing as oversharing for this YouTube generation. This is what makes American Teen so problematic for viewers and supposedly responsible older parties, including Burstein (The Kid Stays in the Picture). The film has been so heavily shaped and edited, just like a Hollywood teen flick, that the manufacturing overwhelms any genuine insight into adolescent life today. What about the kids who didn't sign the release forms, who don't dream of reality TV fame, who keep their private lives, well, private? Those we never meet. And that's a movie Burstein will never make.
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I saw this film at the SIFF and got the opportunity to chat to its director, after having sat through the Q & A at which the latter graciously consented to appear on a rainy Saturday morning, no less! I can only wonder if Miller saw the same movie I did, if he had this same opportunity, or if he knows that in order to feature minors in Docs, you really do have to get their permission and have them sign consent forms, not to mention that parents' permissions, etc.
Sure, the film could not document each and every American Teen's life experiences, but then what film does? Sure, the youngsters who did NOT want to appear on camera and be filmed, were not filmed, too! So, the reviewer's criticism about the folks who weren't on camera appears to me to be somewhat moot. What non-consenters would want to be shown, so of course no films will be made about them.
That said, the people who were brave enough to want to be followed and filmed, were hardly shown in their best lights all the time. I thought that the kids who elected to have their lives documented were quite candid and forthcoming. And, Ms. Burstein was sympathetic toward the teens, and at the same time desirous of wanting to capture their realities for the rest of us, while also establishing some distance between she and her subjects. She walked on a slippery slope, it appeared to me.
I liked this film, alot. I thought that it let me into some lives, of some folks that I would never have gotten the chance to meet, ordinarily.
About the voice-overs? I don't they were scripted, any more than any others are, nowadays. Hannah might well have just told her story to a tape recorder, and after being interviewed by Burstein, her words were layered over the action onscreen. I didn't see this as detracting from the overall quality of the film at hand, in other words.
My only regret about seeing the film at the SIFF is that had I know that it would be shown in wider release, I would not have plonked down the 8 bucks to see it at the Festival, and would have waited to see it, until now. But, I hadn't known and so there we are.
PLEASE go to see this movie. I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised by how candid and moving the kids are herein, and how true their stories ring for a great many others of their generation, today.
