American Teen: Review By Rama's SCREEN

AMERICAN TEEN is a doc*mentary that would take you into a world of high school teens and what they have to go through without having to experience any of the fake stuff that The Hills and other so-called teen reality shows have to offer out there. It’s an… edgy and raw portrayal of the victory of adolescent’s desire to turn the chapter and bravely say that life doesn’t end in high school. AMERICAN TEEN will be the closest you will get to almost understand the pressure that kids feel today from all aspects of life. It’s one of the best films this year and I haven’t seen such a fantastic concept for a doc*mentary in so many years.

It’s refreshing to see a doc*mentary that’s not about politics for once. It’s not about bringing down a corporation or about life in the slums. All those are good issues to pay attention to but having an observation on a few lives of American High school teens could say a lot about some of the challenges that we face today and what we can learn from facing them head on.

AMERICAN TEEN is a movie that every parent and teenager need to see. Every one of us who’ve been through public school system could honestly say that the stories depicted in this movie are very accurate… something we can relate to because we either was in that shoe at one point in time or we knew someone was exactly like that.

I’m glad Nannette Burstein decides to go with the stories of these particular number of teenagers in this particular town because I don’t think it would end up as interesting if she tried to cover too much, meaning if we saw elements of drugs and street gangbangers. I think it would be unnecessary to go into those worlds, other doc*mentaries could cover those.

The stories presented in this movie have an underlining theme of pressure… from family, from relationships, from college, from wanting to fit in so badly.

I applaud every character in AMERICAN TEEN who was willing to let one of year of their lives be doc*mented and immortalized in a film. And I applaud director Nannette Burstein for her dedication and comittment to following these few lives for a whole year… it’s cool in a stalker kinda way but it’s still really cool. You can’t help but be impressed.

What really makes this movie so interesting to watch is the relationship that happens when two different cliques collide. We used to think that geeks hang only with geeks but what about a geek who’s actually got the balls to ask girls out. What happens when a jock likes a rebel. What if a popular girl is indeed as mean and bi*chy as the stereotype but then we figure out what might cause the rage ad we root for her in the end.

The whole year, their heads are filled with questions of what to do next or which college to go to just as much as the questions of how they’re going to make this last year of high school a memorable one.

By the way, Jake Tusing who is the geek in this movie is probably the funniest character. He’s not a comedian or anything, it’s just that The darnedest thing he would say and do to get a girlfriend would crack you up. But you gotta admire the effort.

This doc*mentary is a good example of how some parents these days still don’t understand their young ones. They still think that their aspirations are the best ones for their child without considering what the kids want for their own future.

It upsets me how parents choose to live their lives through their kids. How years of boring tradition needs to be passed on to the next generation and that change is often bad and dangerous.

I think some people have been disappointed by life so many times that they don’t believe in dreams anymore. They forget the fact that in this great nation, you can be all you want to be if you’d just believe in yourself and put your mind to it.

If there’s one doc*mentary you’re going to see this year, let it be AMERICAN TEEN