"AMERICAN TEEN"
DVD Review
by Kevin Carr
| MOVIE: ***1/2 (out of 5 stars)
DVD EXPERIENCE: *** (out of 5 stars) STARRING Hanna Bailey as HERSELF Colin Clemens as HIMSELF Megan Krizmanich as HERSELF Mitch Reinholt as HIMSELF Jake Tusing as HIMSELF Rated PG-13 Studio: Paramount Vantage Directed by: Nanette Burstein Back to DVD Review Home |  |
Some of us remember high school quite fondly. Some of us want to forget it altogether. However, it’s worth a two hour look at the high school life again with the documentary “American Teen.”
This film follows five high school students in Warsaw, Indiana, during their senior year. A modern-day Breakfast Club, we follow the princess, the jock, the outcast, the basket case and all the in-betweens. This film was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival last year, and now it promises to be at least a cult hit on DVD.
As I was off to see the press screening of “American Teen” this fall, a friend of mine told me, rather proudly, that she was just like Hannah Bailey. After seeing the movie, I asked my friend if she was exactly like Hannah, or if she were a little more stable.
While compelling and nostalgic, “American Teen” is also like high school because it’s hard to sort out the pure motives of the film. For the most part, it seems that director Nanette Burstein manages to keep her hands off her subjects, and in the world of Michael Moore and Morgan Spurlock, that’s something to be commended for.
However, she definitely has a soft spot for Hannah. That’s to be expected, as I would figure that Burstein had a similar high school career. She was an artistic girl from Buffalo who eventually moved to the bustling and decidedly non-conservative New York City. It’s clear that she identified with Hannah, considering she was treated with kid gloves, much more than the geeky male counterpart Jake, who comes off as a bit of an antisocial, creepy dude.
Similarly, the rich and popular queen Megan Krizmanich comes across as the villain of the movie. The movie seems to stretch at times, making her look like she stepped out of “Heathers” to ridicule the less popular folk. However, in reality, most popular kids in high school just don’t concern themselves with anyone below their status.
Compare the treatment of Megan to the jock Colin Clemens, who is also popular but hardly the muscle-headed stereotype. I can definitely see that Burstein is venting a bit about her own experiences.
Still, with all the bias and stereotyping aside, this film is expertly done. The characters are those we have seen before, not just in films like “The Breakfast Club” but in our own high school lives. And, like our own high school lives, things aren’t as neat and simple as they are in the movies.
There are really no heroes and no villains. Even Megan, who gets a pretty caustic treatment in the film, is given a nice dosage of sympathy as she tries to live up to expectations in this world. Similarly, while Hannah is edited into the film as the closest thing we have to a heroine, her problems (of which there are many, from a clinically depressed mother... to boy trouble... to her own manipulation of boys... to her emotional instability) are also presented with gritty realism.
Like “Napoleon Dynamite,” this movie will remind you what it was like to be in high school. You may not be able to find someone from your past to fit every mold given in this movie, but you’ll find some, that’s for sure. And one of those characters just might be you.
The DVD comes with an expected decent number of deleted scenes, although these clips mined from the cutting room floor drag on a bit too long, making their edits understandable. There’s also cast interviews from after the film was released. The cast is separated by sex, and it is interesting to watch the ease with which the popular kids handle themselves and the awkwardness that the outcasts do as well.
Additional features include trailers tailored to each character and a series of deleted interviews with Hannah, in case you were wondering who got the star treatment in the DVD as well as the film.
