Word: megane
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...that viewers should have trouble pegging the characters. There's Megan, the prom queen, top scholar, clique leader and occasional megabitch--a real Heather from Heathers--but with a family tragedy the movie reveals only near the end. Colin is the basketball star, who's under pressure from his dad, an Elvis impersonator (could you make this stuff up?), to win a college scholarship. "Otherwise," Dad warns, "it's the Army." Jake is the loner. He'll be handsome once he grows out of his braces and that awful acne, but for now he's content to muse...
...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...
...when Megan was committing these minor atrocities, she didn't mind the director tagging along. (Hey, Nanette! I'm gonna T.P. some dork's house. Bring your camera and mike!) We may amend Warhol's law to say that everyone will be notorious for 15 minutes and that no one will mind a bit. As ordinary folks spill their guts on Maury and the reality shows, as young stars go picturesquely bonkers for the paparazzi, people may no longer feel embarrassed about anything. It's not indiscretion, it's publicity. The Warsaw kids aren't upset at how they look...
...hard not to root for these teens, even Megan, the somehow-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...
...NAME: Megan Touma RANK: Army Specialist BASE: Fort Bragg...