American Teen

“American Teen” is populated by high school archetypes, kids who might have stepped out of the mists of your own adolescence or, if you’ve managed to suppress those memories, out of other teen movies, from the canonical works of John Hughes to, um, “Not Another Teen Movie.” There is the blond popular girl, Megan Krizmanich, and her blond sidekick, Ali Wikalinska, young women who wield inordinate [...] Vai alla recensione »

Reality tv, welcome to the multiplex. If The Hills went back to high school and developed wit, perception and a conscience, it might play something like Nanette Burstein's wallop of a doc. Burstein (The Kid Stays in the Picture) did total immersion with a handful of seniors at the only high school in Warsaw, Indiana, which we're told is "mostly white, mostly Christian and red state all the way.

HIGH school can be hard to shake. Some people never make it out of the cafeteria; they're still trying to find the cool kids' table. With “American Teen,” opening nationwide on Friday, Nanette Burstein can claim a certain expertise on the subject. This movie earned her the documentary directing award at this year's Sundance Film Festival and set off a bidding war.

American Teen" follows five Indiana high schoolers through their senior year, shining hopes, pimples and all. Documentarian Nanette Burstein ("The Kid Stays in the Picture") diligently selects representative types -- "jock," "princess," "geek," "heartthrob," "rebel" -- in a small town that, if not exactly reflective of American demographics, does resemble some classic vision of Americana, albeit updated [...] Vai alla recensione »