Word: burstein
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Documentary films are mediated too, by the filmmaker's natural desire to find a coherent narrative, to lure you into the stories of the people onscreen--to (it's not a bad word) entertain. Nowhere is this itch to Hollywoodize reality clearer than in American Teen, director Nanette Burstein's account of one year, 2005--06, in the lives of four high school seniors in Warsaw, Ind. It's the rare documentary that could score at the box office, and not just because Paramount Vantage, its distributor, is pushing it hard. You're likely to have an absorbing, unsettling time...
Stars is the word, though the leads are actual kids, whom Burstein chose in a sifting process in which she contacted hundreds of Midwestern schools and then 10 possible subjects at Warsaw before she settled on her final four. They get the full treatment, with animated vignettes laying out the dreams of each of the quartet and underscored songs cuing the audience's emotions...
...each teen, Burstein has located a dramatic arc, twist and payoff. Colin needs to rack up points to impress the scouts, so he becomes a selfish player, taking all the shots and not passing off. Will he learn the value of teamwork before the big game? Megan is desperate to get into Notre Dame, where her father and siblings have gone, but she courts suspension with nasty pranks: promiscuously e-mailing a topless photo of another girl and making catty calls to her; wreathing a rival's car in toilet paper, then spray-painting a penis and the word...
...poor little rich girl. But it's also tough to ignore their similarities to countless characters in teen dramas and comedies. John Hughes sculpted a career writing about kids like these in The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink; Judd Apatow's Freaks and Geeks mined the same vein. Burstein's film is way more earnest, but she's learned a lot, maybe too much, from the movies' take on teendom. Rather than offer a gritty view, upending the familiar vision of high school angst, she has fashioned a work so smooth and assured, it seems like a re-enactment...
...American Teen” is a simultaneously humorous and heartbreaking look at the challenges teenagers must overcome in their senior years of high school. This documentary, which earned director Nanette Burstein an award at the Sundance Film Festival, chronicles the lives of four students—the outcast artist Hannah, the earnest jock Colin, the bitchy blonde Megan, and the acne-ridden band-geek Jake—as they prepare to finish their high school careers in Warsaw, Indiana.The heart of the film belongs to Hannah, who dreams about moving to Hollywood and making inspirational films—which...