American Teen

Review by Sean Lynch

Sometimes we forget what an interesting time High School actually was.

Sure, we all have our memories, but we tend to gloss over the smaller moments - perhaps even block out some of the more trying aspects of that era of our life.

The major thing we all came out of our schooling life thinking was exactly the same - "No one will ever understand exactly what I went through".

However, as American Teen discovers, EVERYONE went through the EXACT same thing.

This excellent little doco intimately captures the lives of four normal high school teenagers (a jock, a geek, a bitch and an outcast) in one small central Indiana town through their senior year of high school.

Via a clever mixture of staged footage, one on one interviews, animation (the animated sequences are superb), American Teen presents a candid and quientessential portrait of being seventeen.

It's all there - the insecurities (pimples, popularity, peer pressure), the clicks, jealousies, first loves and heartbreaks, sex and alcohol - and that inevitable struggle to make some pretty profound decisions about the future before you have time to even know what or who you are.

The beauty of this film is that it really does capture all the little nuances of that era of life.

The popular bitches are like that for a reason, the best sports guys are selfish players for a good reason, the nerds are social ritards for plenty of reasons - and the alternative norms want to escape the "labels" for reasons that become quite obvious.

And, more than anything, it is just further proof that we aren't "all different" - because even the "different" kids are exactly the same as the other kids who think they are "different".

If Nanette Burstein's film fails, it is due to the sole fact that American Teen too often takes a truly riveting concept and dilutes it by using editing techniques, story tampering and camera shots that have become the norm on The Simple Life, Keeping Up With The Kardashians and The Hills.

In doing so, Burstein almost cheats the audience out of being able to ever truly connect with the documentaries subjects - simply because we don't know whether what we are being shown is real or simply put on for the cameras.

Surely there is no need to heighten reality when the whole purpose of the film is to prove how dramatic teenage life can be?

Bubblegum reality aside, American Teen offers up some gloriously touching moments as well as some fantastically engaging characters (especially the adorably cute Hannah, and the ever-so-bitchy-and-jealous Megan) and is well worth taking a look at - if only to remind you of how big little problems seemed back then.

3 out of 5

American Teen
Australian release: 20th November, 2008
Official Site: American Teen
Cast: Hannah Bailey, Colin Clemens, Geoff Haase, Megan Krizmanich
Director: Nanette Burstein