Surreelfilm

Director Nanette Berstein (On the Ropes, The Kids Stay in the Picture) has said that she consciously widdled the film down to its four primary subjects not only for the broad-appeal archetypes that they represent, but because she felt that each individual had a well-defined purpose and an often painful inner-motivation that also rendered them timelessly relatable. Hannah is fighting a history of depression in her family while trying to escape from a town that desperately wants to hold onto her. Colin has had the unbearable pressure placed upon him of either playing well enough to earn a basketball scholarship or joining the military. Jake is fighting to find a girlfriend who understands him while also trying to vanquish the label of "loser" placed upon him from early on. And finally, Megan is a domineering bitch as a means of compensating for the suppressed guilt of her sister's suicide and her family's sky-high academic expectations of her. Despite the fact that each of these stories makes for compelling drama, one of the reasons that they fit into such concise descriptions is that they can feel a little bit forced. More often than not, each scenario is played out in an excessively literal fashion, leaving little room for nuance. This is especially the case with Jake, as no human being on Earth could be half as awkward as he is portrayed in this film. Also, the framing often leaves certain realities either distorted or completely omitted. Has Colin's father really never heard of student loans? Jake just flies out to San Diego to meet his older brother for a night of Tijiuna debauchery on a mere whim?

In general, although well done, the cinematography tends to add to this staged feel. Burstein didn't shoot this in a detached, documentarian style. She thought about staging and made the camera work dynamic, but unfortunatly it tends to detract from the sense of reality. Also, despite the fact the Burstein has denied all acusations of scripting, some of the conveniences are hard to let go. The cameras were set up and ready to go at the perfect opportunity to catch Hannah's moment of extreme anguish from being dumped by her boyfriend, manage to be present for both sides of a phone conversation between Jake's hopelessly miserable girlfriend and her outgoing "cool-guy" new crush, and present for an excessive number of people as they all receive emails and texts containing a naked picture of one of their female peers. The film also uses a series of animation sequences to represents individuals' dreams when they are expressing fantasies, aspirations, and even nightmares to themselves. Overall, these animations are a mixed bag, and distributed a bit unevenly throughout the film. Each person has a unique animation style to fit their own personality. Colin's description of his eventual rise from highschool star to NBA baller was flashy and entertaining, while Hannah's fall into self-loathing nightmare was sutiably disturbing, but a bit over-cooked. Jake likes to place himself in the shoes of hero Link from his Legend of Zelda videogame, but what begins as fresh and surprising ends up as annoying and overused.

Despite the blemishes and over-simplifications, there are also moments of clarity and undeniable relatability that are impossible to fake, and dripping with the careful nuance found lacking elsewhere. Late in the film Hannah finds herself in a unexpected relationship with "popular dude" Mitch. Despite the fact that the two have undeniable chemistry, and that Mitch especially clearly finds the relationship liberating, the fling is prematurely snuffed out by incompatible social circles and enforced behavioral norms. Also, there is a brief inteview with the afforementioned "nude-picture girl" which portrays a young women so utterly defeated by a vicious bout of 21st century character assasination that it's impossible not to feel mortified for her. And finally, in one of the most beutifully underplayed jokes I've ever seen, Jake spins his prom date to the audience as being a girl he had a fling with at a family wedding who happens to fly in to see him, while it's magnificiently apparent that his parents felt so bad that he couldn't find a date at his own school that they offered to fly in some twenty-something friend of the family who they probably asked to come as a favor. It's moments like that where the movie really breaks through the uncomfortable reality-TV barrier to feel like real life.

I went into American Teen and got exactly what I expected, but something just didn't feel right. There are identifiable elements to the documentary that are a bit distracting, but in the end it's undeniable that the drama and happenings found within are instantly identifiable as the quintessential high school experience, and the culture and lifestyle of Warsaw, Indiana is perfect microcasm of middle-American society in general. In the end, it's almost like a documentary version of the uncanny valley. For those scratching their heads, the uncanny valley is the notion that when robots or other representaions (i.e. CGI) reach a state of human likeness that is close but not perfect, that it creates a sense of revulsion among human observers. (See Robert Zemeckis's Beowulf.) American Teen is a perfect anthropological study of a young society inbreed with a healthy sense of melodrama and angst, which is constantly seeking to overcome seeminly life-or-death obstacles and stresses, both real and imagined, and yet still vitally human. It's just a little bit harder to swallow when that society is your own.

See here for a great interview with Nanette Burstein on making American Teen.

(foreground) Megan, (left to right) Hannah, Mitch, Luke, and Colin