What seems like a conventional girl-boy high-school movie is anything but. Not that The Spectacular Now sets out to confound, it's simply a question of expectation. But once it's realised that school staples are missing (bullying jocks, bitchy cheerleaders, nerds and loners), James Ponsoldt's film becomes immeasurably more interesting. It reveals its hand when socially active Stutter (Miles Teller – Rabbit Hole) falls for the nice girl Aimee (Shailene Woodley – The Descendants) and nothing bad happens. His ex-girlfriend Cassidy (Brie Larson – United States of Tara) doesn't seek insane retribution, he doesn't become the victim of some thwarted plan in the science lab. Ponsoldt's characters are fairly regular teenagers doing what regular teenagers do.

Which for Stutter is mostly about getting loaded. The effortlessly likeable ordinary-achiever drinks his way through the night and most of the day which is as alarming as it is honest. Troubling domestic issues dominate his life, as does the break up with Cassidy, and the unspoken elephant of his absent father. All that changes when he meets Aimee and together they visit his reluctant Dad, a heart-breaking situation that forces Stutter to face up to the inevitability of change. As any regular teenager must.

This is as far from American Pie or Clueless as you can get, recalling the best of indie cinema before it was eaten by Hollywood. Working from a script by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (500 Days Of Summer), Ponsoldt creates a world which, against all expectation, you end up caring about. Everything about the setting, the circumstances and the characters is so refreshingly real that something as simple as a minor car accident lands with the force of a nuclear explosion. Teller and Woodley are terrific in the lead roles and breath a vitality through their modest concerns. Well, they're modest to us. To them it is the stuff that turns teenagers into adults.

The Spectacular Now is the kind of coming-of-age film that will resonate for audiences like The Breakfast Club did 30 years ago. Only better, much better.

// COLIN FRASER

Previewed at Sony Theatrette, Sydney, on 29 November 2013