“American Teen” Review
The Kids Stay In The Picture.
The new Nanette Burstein documentary American Teen observes and even tampers with a senior class’ transcendence through a high school (“Total caste system”) in Warsaw, Indiana, a small American town that’s labeled “Red State all the way”. To set the stage, the filmmakers all but steal the compact and diverse grouping of stereotypes from the influential John Hughes cult film The Breakfast Club (1985). We are introduced to five main players attending Warsaw Community High School: Colin Clemens (The Jock), Megan Krizmanich (The Princess), Jake Tusing (The Geek), Mitch Reinholt (The Heartthrob in place of The Criminal), and Hannah Bailey (The Recluse — that’s the trailer’s version — The Rebel). Any moment in American Teen would have been appropriate to play ‘Don’t You (Forget About Me)’ by Simple Minds.
This film is really about the fear that stems in adolescence and stirs into oncoming adulthood. The fear of being defined by your vices and insecurities brought up by those vicious, maddening years of being a teenager. The fear of realizing your idealistic youth spent in middling, regretful pastimes that are glibly called ‘the best years of your life’. It is dominated by the fear that things will not get better while the present is eaten up by internal bitterness. High school can really suck. Thankfully the clouds clear and the sun comes out on graduation day.
Colin, a self-described jock, is a nice enough guy. He plays High School Basketball, which in this town is a populist blood sport. Adults actually wear all-body painted team colors in the gym stands. Its citizens are about as obsessed as the Massillon, Ohio populace was with high school football in the Ken Carlson documentary Go Tigers! (2001) where it is customary to hold back boys to repeat the eighth grade because they’ll be older and bigger as football players in senior year.
The stakes are considerably higher for poor Colin. If he does not get a scholarship to play basketball for a college, he will have to join the army and go to Iraq. His dad says “get the rebounds or it’s the army with a smile”. That’s like when the Romans threw Christians to the tigers! However engaging this subplot is, it pales in comparison with Steve James’ masterful Hoop Dreams (1993), the pedestal of documentary filmmaking that showed us the hardships and brimming humanity of two inner-city Chicago teens playing high school basketball and dreaming of making the NBA. There were scenarios in that three-hour movie that were laced with deep ironies and great joys. (more…)
