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American Teen

American Teen is a documentary, which profiles the lives of rising seniors at a midwestern high school.

The moive, which follows students at Warsaw Community High School in Warsaw, Indiana, looks at students who fit certain specific archetypes, such as popular students, athletes, and nerds. The movie shows them going through various aspects of high school life including breakups, depression, pranks and pressure, and creates a situation where the viewer empathizes with the students.

I loved the way this movie was shot. When I first sat down to watch it, I thought it was going to be a cheap copy off of some special that you’d expect to see on MTV. However, the students seemed to be genuine, and not overly sensationalized, as they tend to be in films from this category.

I didn’t like how the filmmaker dealt with Hannah Bailey. She was portrayed as a girl with fragile emotions, who had a breakdown when her boyfriend dumped her. She then argued that after she missed weeks of school to recover, she would face embarrassment when she went back to school. It seemed to focus a little too much on her mental state, and not those who her behavior was influencing.

If you’d like a good look at what high school life is like in small-town America, see American Teen.

Written by: Andrew Randall

Reviewers Rating: 7.5
Reader's Rating: 10.00
Reader's Votes: 1

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