This is an indy comedy, one of those teen angst sort of things. Features John C Reilly (Step Brothers), Creed Bratton (The Office) and a bunch of teens.
The story: Terri is an overweight loser/outcast in his school who has so stopped trying that he now comes to school in his pajamas. He starts to meet with the school councelor (Reilly). When he sees the hot girl he has a crush on getting fooling around with a guy during class he accidentally gets them in trouble. However, it is when he helps stop her from getting expelled and then acts nice toward her while everyone else is trying her like an outcast that they develop something that might be a friendship or might be something else.
Was it good?
Almost. Which isn't to say there aren't good parts. There are some fantastic parts that really cut into the dynamics of teen life, especially the life of an outsider teen. However, there also is a lot that is boring or cliched, and the ending especially is unsatisfying, making you feel like the writer/director had one or two key scenes in mind for the story but didn't really know what to do beyond that. Still, for those good scenes alone the film is worth a rental. It's just a shame because with more work to the script, making it dig deeper, this could have been a great film.
The start with Terri as an outcast is fine, but nothing special. I actually thought him going to school in him pajamas was pretty cool -- I know people that did that in college! Also a lot of time is spent on his relationship with his uncle (Bratton). Now this isn't horrible, but it's not that interesting and it isn't really the thing that drives the movie forward, which is him being an outcast. This also is the problem with his relationship with the councellor. It just doesn't feel central to what is going on in his life. Almost all of it could have been cut and the movie would have been better and more focused without it.
Where the movie works is the teen dynamics, especially the character of the girl Terri has a crush on, . Terri who likes the pretty girl and is shocked/dissappointed when he sees her letting a boy feel her up during class is a classic scene. And later as the girl loses her spot in the social status and starts to hang out with Terri as the one guy who is nice to her has something both honest and dream fullfilling. All this builds to her coming over to his house, which is friends want to crash so they can be around the hot girl too. It's another great scene and the centerpiece of the movie.
However, the filmmaker doesn't seem to know what to do with it. While the scene builds and builds well, the ending feels more like the filmmaker trying to avoid cliches (like the boy gets the girl or the girl crushes the boy and goes back to the popular kids) than in actually having something to say. So while the movie has a couple great scenes, the ending feel hollow. It's a shame because when the movie really is willing to deal with the kids it gets into some interesting spaces. The character of the girl, who Terri seems to idolize, but really is just a normal girl with all the normal girl desires for fun and excitement, is one of the best drawn characters. Maybe if the w/d had thought more about BREAKFAST CLUB and less about indy character study this movie would have been really special.
Still for those scenes the movie is worth checking out, especially if you are up for an indy teen angst movie.
*** RENTAL ***
No comments:
Post a Comment