Like last week none of the films I watched this week really grabbed me, but unlike last week there weren't many that deserved even a few kind words. The above coming-of-age flick (a latter-day John Hughes type film) was probably the best of the bunch, although I was tempted to focus on "Bad Words" (also 2013) directed by and starring the usually amiable Jason Bateman. He plays a 40-something slacker who, for his own reasons, has finagled the rules to take part in a national spelling bee aimed at eighth-graders and under. It's a mean-spirited affair with Bateman at his least likeable bullying the kiddies and the officials, although he does eventually find some sort of redemption through his relationship with a friendless Indian child prodigy, winningly played by Rohan Chand.
Back to the subject at hand, based on a young-adult novel with a screenplay by the "500 Days of Summer" scribes, the film was a Sundance hit with best actor awards for its leads Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley. Both are now rising young stars. I first noticed Woodley as Clooney's snippy daughter in "The Descendants" and she has made a name for herself in soppy teen sagas and the Divergent/Insurgent/Allegiant series which also features Teller. His breakout role was the young drummer in "Whiplash". While both display fine acting chops, and theirs are the stand-out roles in this movie's large cast, both of them are really too old now to be playing high school seniors, however young-looking they may appear. Mind you, Teller's sprinkling of teenaged acne does help the illusion.
He plays Sutter, a good-time Charlie, the life-of-the party popular jock who has just broken up with dishy girlfriend Tiffany, Brie Larsen (also too old for the role) -- just before her Oscar-winning role in "Room". To make her jealous he takes up with Woodley's Aimee, a studious, naïve, and vulnerable girl who has never had a boyfriend; not a beauty at the best of times, despite starting her career as a child model, Woodley is drabbed down for the role. Against all expectations it develops into a full-blooded (and shyly sexual) relationship. They meet when he wakes up after a drunken evening sprawled asleep on her front lawn with a 'Dude, Where's my Car' vibe. He's failing geometry, she agrees to tutor him, and things develop from there. They both come from single-parent families and have difficult relationships with their mothers, one workaholic and one feckless (hers brings in extra cash by having a newspaper delivery route, which most days she gets Aimee to service). His is played by the currently ubiquitous Jennifer Jason Leigh, a far cry from her own iconic teenaged role in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High".
The one disturbing feature of this tale is the amount of alcohol Sutter consumes each day just to bolster his confidence and his 'front' and the consequent amount of driving under the influence that takes place. Aimee begins their relationship as someone who has never had a drink, but she soon becomes quite dependent on the mini-flask that Sutter has gifted. He has been pestering his mother to let him contact his absent father and Leigh has resisted. He discovers his whereabouts from a married sister and off the pair go to find what turns out to be a happy-go-lucky but deadbeat Dad. Sutter now believes that his mother didn't want him to meet the man because she believes he is turning out just like him, shiftless and hopeless. He rationalises his drinking as a crutch -- he is afraid of the pressure of other people's expectations. When Aimee is preparing to go off to college and hoping he will join her, he lets her broken-heartedly go alone because he genuinely believes he is no good for her. The film finishes with a will-they or won't-they sop to the viewer (which was not in the original novel).
While it's a more intelligent than most scenarios, graced with complex characters, much of the action doesn't ring quite true. It's as if we are watching an adult's conception of what it is to be a teenager. In this context, I do wonder how much longer Woodley in particular will be stuck in teen roles. She is only one year younger than Jennifer Lawrence who has broadened her range from the teenager in "Winter's Bone" and the 'Hunger Games' series to a variety of very different adult leading roles. So far the talented Woodley is not another Lawrence.
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