American Teen
Nanette Burstein’s Sundance-approved documentary would like you to believe it’s an honest, realistic depiction of the trials and tribulations teenagers face in high school these days, but personally I found it about as convincing as an episode of The Hills. That’s because American Teen uses many of the same questionable editing choices, as well as those obviously staged “intimate introspective moments,” which make that show so difficult to take seriously. Also, it seems like an enormous oversight to make a film called American Teen without featuring even one non-white teenager. Sure the film is set in small town Indiana, but more than a few black and Asian students are glimpsed passing by Burstein’s camera. Why aren’t we hearing their stories? The film does feature one breakout star–art lover/musician/emotional basketcase Hannah Bailey, who is basically a real-life Juno–but the rest of these kids just aren’t interesting enough to carry a movie.
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