Movie Review: American Teen
American Teen (2008)–**
In 2000, a short-lived reality program titled American High chronicled the lives of high school students in suburban Illinois. After FOX canceled the show, PBS picked it up, running the series in full. For all of its flaws, I never questioned the show’s honesty.
A lot has changed for high school student since then. I don’t remember being able to spread nude pictures to everyone at school in seconds or text message attacks. Rumors, scandal and ridicule are delivered instantly with technology, making high school a different place then it was when American High hit television sets. But watching American Teen, you wouldn’t know that.
American Teen is the documentary no one needed to see. Four high school seniors from a small town in Indiana must deal with the pressures of high school, whether it’s being the artsy girl, the nerd, the jock or the queen bee. Yes, high school is tough, but there’s hardly much insight in Amercan Teen beyond growing up sucks sometimes. Without insight, it’s hard to consider it a solid film. But without truth, it’s hard to consider it at all.
Take Meghan, the queen bee, for example. Her life as the “rich, popular” girl is thrown upside down when she discovers her lifelong friend Geoff has eyes for girls who are not Meghan. She also has the family pressure of following in her father and siblings’ footsteps and getting into Notre Dame. Her family suffered a serious tragedy two years before her senior, and yet, there isn’t a moment where it feels appropriate to empathize with her.
There’s also the “geek” named Jacob. He spends his time playing video games, mostly alone, and is in the marching band. When Jacob isn’t marching or gaming, he’s hoping to find his Princess Zelda. Thanks to American Teen we merely see him debase himself on the few occasions he’s able to get up the courage to ask a girl out on a date. It never works out, and we have American Teen edit down his encounters to a single self-pitying line that always ends his potential romance.
As for the jock, Clint, it’s hard for him because he needs to get a scholarship to go to college. His family apparently believes they have it as hard as the kids in Hoop Dreams because basketball is the only way his father sees him going to college.
After spending so much time with the gang of three above, it’s hard to really dig into Hannah’s story. Hannah is the “unique” girl, the one with bigger dreams than going to the University of Indiana like her fellow seniors. She was to make films, to create something that people will remember. But for now, she’s stuck in this Indiana podunk with no one to cling onto. She has a boyfriend who breaks up with her in the opening moments and is forced to find companionship among the school’s elite–a basketball “heartthrob.”
With Hannah, who suffers from bipolar disorder, we could have had an interesting lead, but in context, it’s hard to consider her more than the troubled subject of an Avril Lavigne song. Combined with Meghan from The Hills, Jacob from a bad sitcom and Clint from a CW series, there’s little in American Teen that hasn’t previously been said, often better, elsewhere.
Yes, this reality bites. Maybe I’m still too young, or maybe I got over high school. I just hope I never get so old that I start convincing myself that a documentary a flimsy as this one is providing any insights on “these kids today.”
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