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08/21/08
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American Teen (2008)
70 %
Reviews Counted: 97 Fresh: 68 Rotten:29 Average Rating: 6.6/10
Consensus:
American Teen skates some thin ice with its documentary ethics but, in the end, presents a charming and stylish (if packaged) tale.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating]
Runtime: 1 hr 35 mins
Theatrical Release: Jul 25, 2008 Limited
Box Office: $655,937
Synopsis: American Teen is the touching and hilarious Sundance hit that follows the lives of four teenagers - a jock, the popular girl, the artsy girl and the geek – in one small town in Indiana through their senior year of high school. We see the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousies, the first... [More]
Genre: Education/General Interest
Director: Nanette Burstein
Producer: Nanette Burstein, Jordan Roberts, Eli Gonda, Chris Huddleston
Composer: Michael Penn
Producer: Nanette Burstein, Jordan Roberts, Eli Gonda, Chris Huddleston
Composer: Michael Penn
Reviews
Burstein's goal was to film an authentic senior year of high school. Instead she showed that it's almost an impossibility.
08/19/08
While Nanette Burstein's naturalistic approach is admirable, the results are stereotypical, capturing a feeling of authenticity despite some obvious staging.
08/16/08
One might wish for a bit more variety among the profiled students, or that the students themselves didn't seem influenced by The Hills and other quasi-reality TV, but Burstein gets a lot out of what she has.
08/15/08
It's a painful reminder of the clique-ishness and resulting socially awkward atmosphere of public-school education.
08/15/08
American Teen leaves you feeling like you spent an hour and a half in a time machine. You've been there, seen that and lived through it already.
08/15/08
At first, it seems 'American Teen' might patronize its subjects, but in fact Burstein treats everyone with sympathy...
08/15/08
From self-congratulation and cruelty to self-pity and miserablism, the film prizes prima donna behavior and good looks.
08/14/08
As a movie character, [Hannah's] a keeper; if she didn't really exist, Diablo Cody would probably have to create her.
08/13/08
Even as you watch, though, you begin to wonder how much is real life and how much of what you see was "staged" because the teens knew a camera was watching.
08/10/08
The whirl of hormones, high hopes and hysterical drama that is high school earns its close-up in American Teen, a smart and revealing look at the Class of 2006 in Warsaw, Indiana.
08/08/08
Its subjects blandly keep your attention in almost the exact same way that reality-show contestants keep your attention.
08/08/08
There are many times when you simply can’t believe you’ve eavesdropped on such personal moments. The triumphs and pains of teenage life are captured here in all their marvelous, maddening complexity.
08/08/08
Top Critic
It's just as keen as Breaking Away at making socioeconomic distinctions, and its best characters are equally defiant at resisting attempts to nail them down or put them in their place.
08/08/08
What her cameras capture shouldn’t be construed as truth but rather as scenarios that were cast in stone long before she came on the scene.
08/08/08
Presented with humor but not at the expense of its subjects, American Teen was the toast of this year's Sundance Film Festival.
08/08/08
American Teen finds the truth in the trite and the cliched: It's a wonderful look at why growing up is so hard to do.
08/07/08
Teenagers are restless and get very worked up over interpersonal dramas. Gee willickers, I'm sure glad a film crew traveled all the way to north central Indiana to make that shocking discovery.
08/05/08
There's an old saying about show business being "high school with money". In the new documentary American Teen, there's an expressed feeling that high school is show business without a safety net.
08/05/08
Related Forums
(2008/Docu)-Nanette Burstein's AMERICAN TEEN, from Sundance to theaters on July 25th!
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