See this film to relive those high school days that you have tried to forget. Or, just talk to your kids
As a rule, high school students are not all that interesting. Maybe that’s because if one includes everybody who either knows one, has one as a son or daughter or has been one, there are few people who need to be taught about the experience. In fact, there are few adults who want to learn more about the experience which, to many, was fairly painful in the first place.
Despite that disadvantage, director Nanette Burstein has made this documentary about five high school seniors that is good enough, but completely lacking in imagination. If one wishes to watch a truly entertaining high school documentary, one should take in “American Graffiti.” OK, it’s not a doc, it’s fiction. Pretend. The fact is, this is one situation where the real thing might not be stranger than fiction.
Burstein is capable of masterful work and the execution of this film is nothing less than her 2000 Oscar nominated Best Documentary “On the Ropes.” But the subject matter is completely lacking in mystery. To make a film about boxers is one thing. Boxing is something most of us will never do but most have secretly dreamed of (OK, maybe it’s just the guys). But going to high school? Come on, we’ve all been there. Obnoxious, scurrilous tricks and sophomoric scandals, broken hearts, lies, true love, pimples and nerds. Really, we have seen it all. We WERE it all.
Will a documentary help us relive it?
Hannah Bailey is an artist with a pathological dread of school. She dreams of moving to San Francisco and attending an arts college, but has zero money to do it. All of the odds are stacked against her, but she has a dream. Colin Clemens is the basketball team star in a state where “basketball is everything” (viva Indiana!). But he is under pressure to get a college athletic scholarship or else, his father tells him, there will be no college because he has no money (OK, dads lie a bit now and then…). The odds are for him, but the punishment is severe, if he fails.
Geoff Haase is one of the best nerds ever. He has a case of acne that is world class. He might have been infected with genetically engineered acne just for this film. He falls in love and presumably saps his vital body fluids, thereby stunting his progress towards becoming the next Bill Gates. Megan Krizmanich is the rich, popular girl who has everything but is under extreme pressure to continue the family tradition and attend the university for the Indiana elite (no, it’s too embarrassing to name…just believe it, they love the school…). Mitch Reinholt is another basketball player who puts his popularity on hold to date the only girl in the school with brains, then blows it.
Granted, the picture is a tear jerker in places, such as when the down-on-his-luck basketball star believes in his team mates and makes the winning basket for the championship or when the stressed out homecoming queen opens that letter from the college of her dreams to see of her dream has come true, or not. But otherwise, both the tears and the laughter have to be forced out, a bit.
The director filmed the picture over ten months, the entire school year. So she can’t be faulted for lack of patience. How did she know she was going to get any story at all? Did she film several high school classes and pick the one that had the stories? Maybe she filmed 20 kids in this class and picked the five with the best stories (more likely). In any event, she came up with five good stories. The only problem is that we all lived them before and there is not that much in this film we haven’t seen, better, from our desk in home room or on those hard gym bleachers.
One of the best inside looks you will ever get of high school life in Indiana. Beats the heck out of living there…
Release: July 25, 2008
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