"American Teen" (2008)Grade: B-
Ok I am getting tired so I have to hurry these along. "American Teen" is a documentary that felt a bit too MTV for me. I think the style of the film is what detracted from it for me. I believe it when the director says its all real. Obviously some shots are staged as some always are in documentaries. But she shot 1,000 hours of footage over the course of a year, she had a lot to choose from. I believe its all real but I think the way it was edited together felt a bit fake which is why she is catching some slack. The animation sequences when they were each describing their dreams was really stupid. It was lame and honestly condescending to the meaningful stuff each of them were saying. It took me out of the film and was such an unneccesary gimmick that it would have gotten a B without those. I just wish the style had been different. Also the placing of information was structured in a very convenient way as to manipulate people into feeling things for these characters at certain times. For example, throughout the film we hate Megan for doing horrible things but then we learn right before her acceptance letter for Notre Dame is supposed to be coming in that her sister committed suicide two years before. All of this just in time for us to want her to get into Notre Dame instead of not wanting it. Colin was the least interesting for me. I adored Jake and Mitch (until Mitch did something really stupid). And of course Hannah was my favorite. Absolute favorite. She was so freaking cool. I want to be her best friend. But anyways yeah, definitely really really entertaining but put together in a way that is unfortunately a bit too stylish for its own good.
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