DVD Review : American Teen

I wanted to like this DVD, I really did. It had a lot of critical buzz on the festval circuits last year and I was sad I missed it in theaters. But when it came down to what this film was really about all I could think of was one word: Plastic.

American Teen is a documentary is about experiencing High School through the eyes of five real-life Indiana teenagers. They are the Prom Queen, the Heartthrob, the Jock, the Rebel, and the Geek. (Wow stereotype time already huh?). In this film we are promised a deep dive into what makes high school students tick. And we are promised that no matter who you were in high school you are going to connect with one of these students.



However that promise simply falls flat. The reason goes back to my mentioning of the one word summary from above: Plastic. The whole things feels way too perfect and plastic. It's like watching MTV's "The Hills" for 2 hours. The people are plastic, the camera work is plastic, the documentary is just way too perfect in it's coverage. I am sure the filmmakers will argue this, but some shots are totally and absolutely staged. To me that takes all the reality out of this MTV style film. Documentaries are supposed to be gritty......not plastic.

The behind the scenes features of this film were not really film school in a box. They were more just scenes left on the cutting room floor. I'll post the best one later today.

All in all I give this DVD a D+. I would skip this one on Netflix.