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AMERICAN TEEN
American Teen
 Meet five students from Warsaw High in their senior year, and find out what it means to be an American teenager.  score

2		 moviereview rates films from
1 (unwatchable) to 5 (unmissable)
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Cast
Documentary

 Director
Nanette Burnstein

 Screenwriter
Nanette Burnstein

 Country
USA 

Rating / Running Time
M / 95 minutes

Australian Release
November 2008

Official Site
(c) moviereview 2006-2008
ABN 72 775 390 361
 Nanette Burstein’s attempt to turn the college movie on its head by exploring the reality of college stereotypes is an interesting idea. Exploiting our response to Hollywood cliché, she seeks to reveal small-town teenage life - enter the geek, the jocks, the cheerleader, the rebel and the cause. What sounds like 90 minutes of heaven or hell, depending on your enthusiasm for American teenagers, is largely, despite Burstein’s clear intentions, 90 minutes of neither.

The filmmaker approached Warsaw High School in the American mid-west to chart social pressure on five students in their senior year. We’ve me them before - the blonde queen bee who sits atop the social ladder, two basketball champs who just wanna play ball, the pimply boy who likes performing in the school band... It’s like being back in The Breakfast Club and about as scripted. For there’s no escaping the cause and effect of lights and cameras on the grounds and in the halls of Warsaw High.

Burstein also exploits our response to reality TV. As the camera roams the schoolyard, it eggs most students into acting, rather than being, themselves. Soon that ebullient, phoney feeling that gives Big Brother its edge overwhelms a film that sits like an awkward guest in the cinema. There’s a willing audience for free fake reality, less so when you have to pay for it.

While Burstein’s kids are engaging to some level, and more so for younger audiences, it’s hard to imagine their trials pressing many buttons in this part of the world. Besides, Summer Heights High already presents a more valuable, and more honest, account of teenage student life.

// COLIN FRASER