User reviews

I read a few of these posts, and think I might have a different perspective. I live in Washington, D.C., and have never been to Indiana outside of a visit to Bloomington as a child. I went to a public high school in upstate New York, near Syracuse, in the 70's. My friend and I went to the movie to see if and how high school and high school students have changed since we were in school. We were not interested in "Warsaw High" as a institution, nor in learning about Warsaw as a community. And after we left, we talked about the movie and never discussed "Warsaw as a community". We talked about the individual kids. It may help those of you who think the audience is going to draw negative opinions about your community to know that most of the audience doesn't think this was a study of your community - I saw it as a snapshot of a few high school kids from an American town. As I watched, I did wonder about how "typical" high school interactions could be filmed with people wired for sound and with cameras in their face, etc. I knew some of it had to be staged or severely affected by the presence of the camera. The center of the film, for me, was the pressures on, and insecurities of, the kids. I found the individual interviews to be probably the most honest and reliable part of the movie. Jake, Hanna, and the others said some pretty revealing and insightful (and embarrassing) things about themselves; sometimes funny, sometimes touching. And at my age, I know these are kids, as I was once a kid, who will grow up and out of this period of their lives. So I don't see the kids as stuck where they were. Again, it's a snap shot. Kids want to please their Dads by getting in to the right school or getting a scholarship; kids want a boyfriend or a girlfriend; there are cliques; there are jealousies and power trips. Yep, it's high school. That's all I saw. I liked the movie. Sorry if the film crew was rude. But Warsaw, chill out. I have no more or less an opinion of a town I never heard of, and whose name I will forget tomorrow, than before. To a ticket buyer like me, it wasn't really about you; it was touching on the universal American high school experience. Half true, half false; real and also TV and movie generated. The kids all got off to school and are growing up. We should, too. It's all gonna be OK.

In the documentary "American Teen," which had its Regional Premiere here at the 2008 SXSW Film Festival on the heels of an auspicious Sundance debut, filmmaker Nanette Burstein chronicles a year in the life of a group of high school students from Warsaw, Indiana.

On the face of it, it seems like we've seen this before -- the popular girl, All-American jock, shy pimply geek, and wild child -- growing up and dealing with the overwrought, overblown, magnified time of life that is adolescence in rural America. But this is 2008, and issues that were never raised in the past, or were overlooked -- mental health, self-acceptance, peer pressure and the need to fit in -- take on a new, frightening reality in this day of Columbines and nooses and hatred taken to unheard of levels. The consequences of ignoring what our teens are saying are more frightening than ever before.

Yet Burstein's subjects are a refreshing dose of a reality we don't see on television -- yes, these kids are troubled and in need of support, but they also demonstrate an impressive capacity to heal themselves. They are smart, streetwise, and comfortable in their own skin. They are smart, funny, and adorable. They have more to teach us about the importance of being able to laugh at ourselves than we may be willing to admit.

Ultimately, they grow on us because we've all been there, if not one then a combination. There are more awww moments than one can count and, in the end, we want to stay there in Warsaw, Indiana.

I enjoyed it at first but then started thinking about how the odds of this movie being authentic are pretty much 0. Yet another "documentary" director pushing the genre envelope. Countless shots where you think, "well, how convenient was that...what are the odds of her camera being there".

Why not just call it a movie with untrained kids doing the acting based on their experiences. A fantastic movie called Kids (1999) was done in a similar style sans lies & deception. Does she not think her movie can be enjoyed as fiction? This manipulation frustrates me.

I was recently at a documentary festival where the director fessed up to staging a few of the funnier scenes...someone in the audience followed up this revelation with a "why did you do that?". he just shrugged.

i feel that sort of lack of credibility & concern from the director when watching this film.

watch Kids and see how a film "shot in documentary style" should be made. or 7-up/Hoop Dreams if you want reality. don't settle for this middling attempt.

"In no order of things is adolescence the time of the simple life." Janet Erskine Stuart

As a non-television viewing guy, I may have just been introduced to a reality-show type of documentary, American Teen, directed and scripted by the acclaimed Nanette Burstein. That this look into the life of four typical graduating teens at mid-America's Warsaw Community High in Indiana may look like an episode on Real World I have on good advice. That it frequently seems like a docudrama I have on my own counsel.

American teen covers all the bases with stock characters: the nerd, the queen, the outsider, the jock, but these are real teens with real challenges such as attracting dates, getting accepted to the right college, meeting dad's expectations-- well, you know the drill if you know teens, be they in Indiana or Los Angeles. Burstein was successful in allowing the legendary producer Robert Evans to tell his unique story in The kid Stays in the Picture. "Unique" doesn't generally apply to American Teen.

As I questioned Errol Morris's manipulations in his documentary Standard Operating Procure (2008) (re-enactments, arty images, and sublimating music), so I question Burstein's artful interpretations: animated sequences about the teen's anxieties and dreams and arguably rehearsed or set-up scenes, the most obvious a face-slapping reaction that looks rehearsed if not just plain lucky for the filmmaker to be there to catch it. Similarly, but less dramatically, is a father calmly telling his son to get a basketball scholarship or go into the Army. It's all too pat, or as several critics have said, "slick."

Maybe because I had several children who passed through senior high with similar experiences, I am not feeling enlightened by American Teen. A successful doc usually gives insight; this one gives me reservations about the durability of the real documentary.

Winning a place on the guest list to American Teen was not a high priority for me. When I heard the title, I thought it must be a teen movie, and when I read that it was a documentary, I was even less interested. I could not have been more wrong.

This was the first time I've watched a documentary in a cinema, and it was well worth a Monday night. The stories of these five adolescents from Warsaw, Indiana were absolutely compelling, and wonderfully hilarious, as the raucous laughter from a near-empty cinema attested. Nanette Burstein has edited their experiences in their final year of high school with a deft hand, developing a rich, interwoven story well worth telling.

Watching these young Americans over-experience every emotion imaginable was fascinating not only because of the universal comedy of youth, but also because it reminds you just how much better our own education system is. Which is quite an accomplishment when your audience is a cynical old ex-teacher like myself.

American Teen is not ground-breaking or unique, but it is one of those rare pieces of film-making that exemplifies the best of the art form: simple storytelling, with characters that are easy to relate to, an awesome soundtrack, and an image of ourselves. Well worth a Monday night. Or even a Friday. Go see it.

While watching this film, you will find a piece of yourself in each of the students followed around whether it the nerd, the outcast, the jock, or the prom queen. As Brian's paper states at the conclusion of The Breakfast Club, we all have a little of each clique inside of us, it is just a matter of being confident in yourself to let those traits out when surrounded by those you don't think of as your crowd. I started reliving moments from that time in my life, good and bad, sparked by the events occurring on screen—things I may not have even thought I remembered too. Just because these are kids graduating six years after I did, in a school with technology my friends and I never dreamt of, (Texting in school during class? What the hell is texting?), all the craziness, emotion, pressure, and fight to either conform or be as different as possible definitely remains the same.

The great thing about this film is the utter candidness everyone involved portrays. These kids do horrible, horrible things to each other and yet none of them fear the camera they confess to. Everything is documented from moments amongst a group, confessionals alone with the camera, texting and phone conversations, even drinking binges in San Diego. I would love to see something on the DVD release showing everyone's reactions to watching it all for the first time, whether they realized some of the things they did when they happened and if they feel any remorse now. It is all very genuine in most instances. Sure guys like Jake Tusing play to the camera to make him seem as dorky as possible and Mitch Reinholt performs for the filmmakers as he winks and talks to the camera while trying to get Hannah Bailey's attention at the gas station, but it is all still their personalities coming through. My favorite has to be Miss Perfect Megan Krizmanich, though. She is so self-absorbed that everything going wrong has to be the fault of everyone but herself. Does she drive her friends away? Of course not, they abandon her. I feel sorry because that is just whom she is and how she was raised to be the best and go to Notre Dame like her father and siblings before her. It really is too bad because when we get to see the true her come out, as she speaks about her sister's death, you can see the compassion that she hides deep down so as not to ruin her ice princess façade.

Nanette Burstein has crafted a highly enjoyable film with equal amounts of poignancy and laugh out loud moments. Her film is very funny, both in intentional and unintentional instances. Following these kids around for an entire school year, especially one with so much importance as senior year, the last seconds before going off into the real world of work, college, or the army, could not have been an easy task. It must have been even harder to edit down all the footage into the seamless progression we are shown. There is no true lead, besides the main four of Megan, Jake, Hannah, and basketball star Colin Clemens, and Burstein is never afraid to linger on the characters hanging out in the periphery. Some of these friends and acquaintances outshine the stars because they just interact with each other and never try to extrapolate their feelings for the camera. A guy like Geoff Haase or Megan's friend that likes him or even Hannah's best friend, always there for her, (I forget his name but he is such a mystery because you never get his reaction to it all, whether he has feelings for Hannah or if they truly are just friends), are the most intriguing.

Credit the parents, or the filmmakers for duping them, because to show some of the things going on takes some guts. We are privy to what could have easily been a felony/misdemeanor, underage drinking at private homes as well as bars and clubs, and some very cruel activities. You have to feel for Erica as her naked pose to the boy she liked spread like wildfire throughout the entire student body—I guess Vanessa Hudgens isn't alone. And times like Megan's party, when her two best friends put the moves on each other, seeing things get out of control. Screaming matches, tempers flaring, and even a face slap escalate what was a pretty chill get-together. For the cameraman and Burstein to be able to just sit back and watch, unknowing whether the anger rose because they knew they were on film and wanted to go all out, must have been tough. I know I would have wanted to step in and calm things down, especially being the adult when underage drinking is going on.

I really enjoyed following these kids around, reminiscing about the "hardships" my friends and I had in high school. We look back now and realize how easy we had it; despite thinking our lives were rough and stress ridden then. For a teenager, high school drama is all you have, your image is king and if you don't like yourself, times can be very tough. I wonder what happened to Jake, which reinvention he chose for Wisconsin; whether Colin excelled at Indiana Tech's basketball program; and how Hannah, the person I related to most being the middle of the pack, friends with all yet not quite included anywhere, dealt with her year in California and if she finally went to college. I hope everyone does well and maybe use this film experience as a way to see who they really are, altering themselves if necessary to be the best they can.

I always just assume, as I'm dragging my tired ass out of bed, into the shower, out the door, into the subway and up the 22 flights of stairs to my tiny box my boss calls a cubicle that any teenager I pass has no clue about anything at all. I know I'm selling them short but I always see them just standing there, talking about nothing at all and making sure everyone around them can hear what they have to say. They're texting each other and shoving each other and making out obnoxiously up against me on the bus. They annoy me but this is primarily because I wish I had it as easy as they do. The irony is that they do have it so easy but they think they're going through the hardest part of their lives, that once they get out of high school, everything will work out in their favour. There's a reason people are always urging young people not to grow up too soon, y'know.

I expected terror. I expected anxiety. I didn't expect these things from the kids in Nanette Burstein's documentary, American TEEN, but rather from myself while having to sit through an in-depth exploration of what it means to be a teenager in middle America these days. I got neither. Instead, I felt sympathy, connection and nostalgia. The promotional material for this Sundance winner for Best Direction in a Documentary suggests that the five teenagers who make up the main subjects follow in the stereotypical footsteps of THE BREAKFAST CLUB. There's Hannah, the rebel (who is really more of an artist than a rebel), Colin, the jock (who defies all preconceived notions of what it means to be a jock), Megan, the princess (who delights in drama and the suffering of others), Jake, the geek (who naturally plays video games and is in the school band) and Mitch, the heartthrob (who barely leaves an impression on the viewer like the others). The reality is that American TEEN is actually a much more tender and understanding exploration of the insecurities that lie behind the images. All five of these kids turned into characters grow more into themselves before our eyes.

Burstein followed these five kids and a good number of their friends for the entire 2006 scholastic year at Warsaw Community High School. They had troubles with their parents, with their friends, with where they would go to college and with what the prom theme would be, to name but a few of the daily dramas in their lives. As one would expect from a teenager, they believe the world revolves around them and that their problems are monumental in comparison with anyone else's. What struck me most though is that their problems are not really that different than my problems or those of my friends. Now I haven't been a teenager for many a year but I still struggle with finding a partner, with finding myself. I still wonder where my life will lead, where I fit in. With responsibilities like bills, rent, a job, staying fit and keeping up with Jones', I don't have time to let the drama consume me. These five and the millions of others just like them define themselves by their dramas as they don't know the fragility of life yet. Still, their subtle self-questioning, their longing to belong and their hope for their futures gives me a whole other kind of hope for the future of humanity.

American TEEN is an enjoyable, refreshing documentary that will inevitably play differently to all who see it, as everyone had a different adolescent experience. Some have moved on while others still hear the echoes of torment or thrill in their minds. I know I was just as lost as they were at their age but I'm pretty sure I wasn't as loud or vindictive - and, yes, I am aware of how simply making this statement ages me more than is necessary. Thanks to Burstein's finely balanced exposition though, when I see a bunch of kids loitering outside my local corner store, I won't focus solely on the loudness with which they ponder which Jonas brother is the hottest but rather remember the confusion that lives inside them and still lives somewhere within me.

It's Warsaw, Indiana and it's the senior year for a group of high school students. Megan Krizmanich is the queen bee and the rich type-A princess. Colin Clemens is the basketball star and closest thing to Jesus. Jake Tusing is the lowly pimply band geek who is intent on getting a girl. Hannah Bailey is the artsy rebel girl with best friend Clark and looking to leave to make movies. She sleeps with boyfriend Joel and they break up. There is a sexting incident and Megan bullies the girl. Colin is under pressure in need of a scholarship.

The most obvious question is that if these are even real people. That's a loaded question for a supposed documentary. It seems a lot of it is setup by the filmmaker. It's a little too slick at times. I'm not talking about the animation inserts or the one-on-one interviews. The basic interactions sometimes feel set up. I hope nobody writes dialog for these kids but I wouldn't be surprised if the kids do. The movie does get the awkwardness and uncomfortableness of being a teenager. It just feels like a coat of gloss has been painted on top of any realism.

Any enjoyment I may have experienced watching this film was killed by a nagging doubt that what I was watching was authentic.

Is it just me ... or does this film smell fishy? Not only is the camera ALWAYS in the right place when key events occur but each shot has degree of polish that would seem to have required a lot of advanced planning.

This feels like some sort of mockumentary and I'm amazed it has been so positively reviewed. Is America this naive?

Even if this film is real, it doesn't give us any more insight into the world of teen cliques than we got 25 years ago from John Hughes films. With most documentaries, there is are questions about what liberties were taken for the sake of the presentation but "American Teen" goes beyond that. I'm hoping Nanette Burstein will soon say, "By the way, I hope everyone realizes this was a gag." Otherwise, she has lost all credibility with me.

This was the only documentary we had a chance to see this year, and we picked well! I found myself getting so absorbed in the stories of these 4 mid-western teenagers that I forgot temporarily that they were actual people. It is unbelievable that the director was able to catch these kids on camera saying and doing the things they did. One of the characters was so unsympathetic that we wondered why on earth she would act the way she did. I can't help but wish the director had included a "what are they doing now" note at the end. These kids are the same age as my oldest daughter, and perhaps that's why I felt connected to them, but I truly do want to know if they followed through with their plans. We also enjoyed the occasional lapse into animation the film included; some were funny, some were disturbing, but we felt they were well done, if a bit slick. This was by far our favorite movie of the 10 we viewed at Sundance this year. I wish the director had been able to come for Q&A.

I couldn't help but watch this film and think how incredibly empty it was. When if anything it should be the opposite.

The makers of American Teen place themselves in the lives of a classes senior year of school. We are to witness the usual cliques of several teens who go through the growing and learning pains of life.

In the end though, the dramatic moments and the loud soundtrack, quick editing, sound bite moments end up making the real people in this film come across as caricatures in their own movie.

The film is bombastic and in your face, when it needs to step away and tone down. When the intimate or poignant moments are described in someones life, it becomes flashy and gimmicky with distracting animations.

When it's suppose to poignant, its 2 sentences and over. You really don't get to know these kids other than what is described in the first 10 minutes of the film.

Scenes are played out of teenage life that everyone can relate to, but with the cameras around, it feels forced and coerced, regardless of whether the incidences are true to life. Someone is dumped by text message on their cellphone, so how do the film-makers capture that in real-time??? You get the sense the viewer is being cheated. A documentary is suppose to let the story unfold by itself, at it's worst American Teen actually becomes "predictable".

The idea of getting into a high school and capturing every detail of intimate moments with the kids, seems to have created a world that almost feels like its scripted when the cameras are around, and overly dramatic, when it doesn't have to be.

All the senior adults in the movie that are related to the kids (parents, teachers) even come across as nothing but pure buffoons who we don't get to know either.

It really does feel like the film-makers project some sort of ideas as to how this one town is a template for every high school in America, when it's really not that simple.

In the end though I wouldn't discourage people from seeing it, but the American teen is way more complicated than this, and the film-makers just haven't got it.

We saw "American Teen" twice over the weekend at the True/False (documentary) film festival in Columbia, Missouri. It was an amazing, in-depth look at today's teenager. My 14 year old went with us to see it and her comment? "It was very accurate." One of the top films of the festival. Shows the pressures teens face today in a very honest way, full of raw emotion and real tears. Every teenager and every parent of a teenager should see it. It is eye-opening and thought provoking. The director was here for Q & A afterward and she confirmed for us that one of the teens, after getting a job on the west coast, decided it wasn't for her and moved to the east coast (!) where she is now attending a less expensive film school!! The others are still doing what they were doing at the end of the film (i.e.-attending college).

A mediocre movie that depicts a series of true life characters in their senior high school year. Unfortunate for the viewer that wants to see a more in-depth understanding as to why the teens behavioral patterns are how they are depicted - the writer/director fail(s) at showing why the most successful teens have the gift of having non-broken "quote on quote" normal families. Not much perspective in to family backgrounds, though hard to do in approx 1.5 hrs of film. I feel for Hanah's character, she seems like a very bright yet confused girl, and Jake was my favorite, perhaps because I felt like him at times in my high-school years, though my circumstance was quite different, being the only Caucasian boy in my school.

Some points missed are a character of a substance abusing person, most schools have them as well ; and teacher-student bonding, which is much more prevalent in closely knit communities like the one in this movie.

Final review: boring at times, too shallow, not enough character depth.

American Teen, the latest documentary from Nanette Burstein (The Kid Stays in the Pictures / On the Ropes) is equally fascinating and moving. It follows the senior year of four High School students in Warsaw, Indiana. Burstein and her crew chronicle the lives of the students closely, capturing rare moments of beauty, truth, and doubt.

Although I really liked the film, it took me a while to get into it. It starts on their first day of school, and when we're first introduced to the main subjects, they seem cliché. You have the basketball jock (Colin Clemens), the popular girl (Megan Krizmanich), the artistic, liberal girl (Hannah Bailey), and the self-professed nerd (Jake Tusing). I'm watching a documentary about High School and they're focusing on stereotypical teens? Great. After a while, however, I realized that there's so much more to these people than meets the eye.

Along those lines, I was interested in Colin Clemens' story, especially with regards to his father. His father is very up-front about the fact that he can't afford to put Colin through college after he graduates from High School. He basically says that he has two options. The first is to get a scholarship from basketball, and the second is to join the Army. You'd expect Colin's father to be overbearing, pushing Colin to do well in basketball, but he isn't. I was impressed with the love he showed throughout the film. It was very uplifting and genuine.

As a documentary, it is indeed quite an impressive undertaking. I heard that they ended up filming over 1,000 hours of footage over a 10-month period of time. Nanette Burstein said in an interview that they had other subjects, but due to different problems, etc. they ended up with only four. I think it worked out well in the end. I'm not sure if I could have handled watching a documentary involving that many people. I felt like I knew each person individually by the end of the film and felt sorry to see them go.

At times it seemed like Burstein was waiting for the fantastic to occur, to be ready to capture it on film. When those moments do come, they really are awesome and penetrating. There are moments when I felt embarrassed, as if I were reading a friend's diary or personal letter. In those moments, the façade is pulled back and you see glimpses of real people in real life situations. Those moments helped quell my questions about how aware they are of the cameras recording their every move. I'm sure some of what was on-screen was a show, but underneath it all they seem very honest and open.

The film is largely made up of filmed instances in their lives, b-roll of their surroundings, and interviews with each individual. Sometimes scenes of computer animation, which I didn't think worked, would accompany these interviews. I thought that they successfully helped to convey visually what each person was talking about, but it really took me out of the experience of watching a film.

This film reminded me of "7-Up", an on-going series by Michael Apted. Starting in 1964, they documented the lives of seven-year-old British students from differing backgrounds and asked them what they thought about government, their future, etc. They have continued to get together with the same subjects every seven years. The last segment, 49-Up, was release in 2005. Both "7-Up" and American Teen show us different economic perspectives and backgrounds.

American Teen is a great fly-on-the-wall experience. Looking at the different lives of these students I see parts of myself in each one of them. There's a lot to learn from observing others; the decisions they make and the ones they don't.

I hope Nanette Burstein takes note of Michael Apted and decides to do a follow-up to American Teen several years from now. That would be fascinating.

I kept thinking throughout the whole film that there was something inauthentic to it. It seemed staged. Manufactured. Not all of it but certain plot points seemed "created". That kept me from really enjoying the film. Additionally, Megan's Hate Crime goes largely unpunished, at least what they chose to show. If she had scrawled a racial slur on that young man's window, it would have been taken very seriously. It sends a dangerous message, although that can be said for a lot of this film.

Bottom line on this film for me is that it doesn't feel authentic. It feels false. Even though she probably is guilty of it as well, I never get the feeling proceedings have been staged while watching a film by Barbara Kopple.

Hats off to the A&E Network for bankrolling this slight, but interesting slice of life at a mid Western high school, where cliques, depression,peer pressure,sexual/chemical experimentation is ever a slice of life (I know, as I went through all of it,myself in my own adolescence). Nanette Burnstein has taken a handful of subjects that we've all seen before (a basketball jock,a band nerd,a mall queen,an artsy introvert,etc.),and show one year in their lives (their senior year in high school)on screen, complete with various interviews of the subjects, all done in a semi cinema verite fore mat (always welcome). The film also features some animated sequences,that manage to crawl into the psyches of some of the subjects (another nice touch). I guess if I have but one tiny quirk about this film, it pretty much manages to only capture one aspect of the American teen experience (as it takes place in the heartland of America,no black,Hispanic or Asian kids are depicted). I'm hoping that if Bernstein decides to produce 'American Teen 2', it will be filmed in an East Coast, urban setting (just to balance things out a little more). Apart from that, I was pretty impressed by it. Parents should see this,to get a view on how their youngsters are conducting themselves when they're not always around (or just don't want to be bothered---until it's too late). I'm talking about teen drinking,smoking,sexual experiences (although,illegal street drugs--i.e. Heroin,Cocaine,Meth,etc.are never mentioned here,but you know they're out there). The film is given a PG-13 rating,due to language & situations mentioned above.

I watched this documentary this afternoon, and really like it. It's quite entertaining, and though I've never been to America, it feels quite realistic to me.

I've been a teenager not so long ago, and still can feel how that life feels. As a Chinese, most of us more or less feel jealous about American teenagers-they always seems live in a more wealthy life, have more freedom no matter in express their ideas or do things they like. The culture which open for sex and independent life always make people around me say: if i live in America...

But after watching this film, I understand that American Teenagers also have their own problems, and if we see that from the original, we have so many common issues waiting to solve.

When a boy or a girl riches 14 or so, we are sexually available, and sexual fantasy come along with it. Parents and teachers never tell us how to hook up with guys or girls, vise visa, they always tell us it is wrong to fall in love as a teen age boy, actually, they tell us it is wrong to fall in love as long as we are still a student-no matter we are 24 or 27. Hand in hand with the opposite sex is highly not allowed, don't even mention kiss. this always seem some kind of crucial for me, i just believe people should have the right to do anything they want and they can, on the condition of not harming others. Stopping others from doing things they really like, that is sin. Well, this is Chinese teenagers' dissatisfaction.

But as i see these American boys and girls like and hate each other, flirting with the ones they like, bitching about other girls' private life and do bad thing upon their back... it just feels exactly the same with my senior years, at this point, don't have sexual education is not that important and not make me that mad anymore, what really beautiful in this is the youth we had.

I've been cried for the boyfriend breaking, too. And i know my girl friend cried even harder than me, though my parents never know I had a boyfriend, other students parents seldom know they ever have boyfriends or girlfriends; in our school, we also have attractive guys every girl crushed on; they mathematic geek no girl wanna date; and of course, those bitches who always think they are the beauty queen, never know they are the most ugly person in the city from inside. We also have student who always want to go to the big city for their own dream, no matter how their parents freaked out-for he knows that this is the real way to live life, to step out and see the world as much as he can, and always do things he love and he's good at...

Yes, we are the same, no matter where you were brought up and grew up, there's no need to jealous anybody from and culture and maybe no need to feel sorry for anybody from any culture-if they come from a environment harder, they must saw something different which made their life different, and we should make this as a power but something feel sad. I think their must have a reason of the life we have which different from each other.

I love this film, not only it's entertaining, not only it showed me how American teenager's life is, but it made me realize: inside, we are all teenagers, we are all human beings, no matter which culture we are from, there's a way to make it beautiful and fabulous!

The rest of it, just don't care.

It's been ten years since this "documentary" came out and Nanette Burstein still hasn't fessed up (the way Peter Jackson did, and immediately, with FORGOTTEN SILVER), so we can now call it what it is. It's not a documentary, nor is it (as one reviewer here suggests) a "mockumentary". It's a hoax, and a pretty clumsy one at that. Burstein supposedly studied a group of high school seniors in small-town Indiana, only to discver that -- surprise! -- they're as stereotypical as characters in a John Hughes movie or an episode of THE O.C. or DAWSON'S CREEK. There's the sensitive rebel (Hannah Bailey), the jock (Colin Clemens), the band geek (Jake Tusing) and the snooty campus queen (Megan Krizmanich). Now granted, they may be real teenagers, and their stories may be (more or less) true, but the movie is a virtual symphony of false notes. Tusing's acne seems to clear and re-erupt from one hour to the next. Many scenes (and I frankly think all of them) are patently staged, with visible microphone packs and camera crews on both ends of "spontaneous" phone calls. Tusing downs his first shot of what we are told is tequila, but he doesn't so much as grimace (even seasoned drinkers can't do that without making a face, never mind a tequila "virgin"). Home video dated 1988 shows Clemens a year old, yet he's supposedly 17 in 2006. And Burstein takes a writer's credit, but there's no narration -- so obviously, what she wrote is the "spontaneous" dialogue.

The movie is entertaining in its hackneyed way, but so trite and cliche-ridden that the only way Nanette Burstein could hope to get away with it was to claim that it was "real life" that just HAPPENED to be trite and cliche-ridden. That so many people -- not only reviewers here but the jury at Sundance and supposedly sophisticated film critics -- accepted this obvious fiction as an honest documentary speaks volumes about their own gullibility.

Though not searching or unusual, the new documentary 'American Teen,' which focuses on a group of students in their senior year at a high school in the little town of Warsaw, Indiana, still hits enough bases to be touching, specific, and familiar.

Burstein worked on the Oscar-nominated documentary 'On the Ropes.' She knows what she's doing, and this stuff is well packaged--a little too much so at first with her jaunty editing in the opening and her cute animations to show the kids' dreams.

The categories seem all too familiar: 'The Jock' (Colin Clemens), 'the Geek' (Jake Tusing), 'the Rebel' (Hannah Baile), 'the Princess' (Megan Krizmanich), and 'the Heartthrob' (Mitch Reinholt). The director picks one of each and sticks with them. But then you realize what she's interested in is how these kids depart from type--while they still buy into the labels.

Thankfully they all break out of their categories--as Burstein expects them too. Colin the Jock almost blows his chances of an athletic scholarship to college. Megan the Princess commits an act of vandalism that takes her down a peg when she's caught, and she's far from a shoe-in to her chosen school (Notre Dame). Besides that, she lives under the shadow of a family tragedy that makes her angry underneath the preening. Seeing himself as a reject and nerd, Jake the Geek suffers many disappointments and rejections--but he's a romantic and in the end he finds love. Perhaps most remarkably of all, for a while at least Mitch, the Heartthrob, happily dates the misfit girl Rebel, Hannah.

The film finds the Rebel and the Geek most interesting in the bunch over all, and focuses on the popular kids most attentively when they become momentarily interesting by messing up.

A warning for anyone outside the Red State American white middle class: don't look for minorities or--outside of sports--standouts at this school or in this movie. Income levels are varied but generally moderate There's nobody gay, or foreign, or handicapped in sight, hardly any black people. There's also nobody markedly brilliant or much interest in what goes on in the classroom. Basketball is a big deal, dating an even bigger one.

The "winners" are the most predictable. Megan is self-centered and bossy. Mitch is cute and has an infectious smile. Jake and Hannah, on the other hand, have a perpetual hard time--and yield the biggest surprises. Jake, who'd actually be cute if he took meds to clear up his acne, articulates the dysfunctionality of his school identity for the camera willingly and clearly (like the boy in Venditti's doc 'Billy the Kid'), and it's not just a self-fulfilling prophesy. Nowadays kids know what a "geek" is, and likewise Megan knows, post-'Heathers' and 'Mean Girls,' what it means to be an Alpha Female. The blurbs for this new movie say it's better than John Hughes or 'The Breakfast Club,' but a lot of how we see these kids and they see themselves grows out of earlier pictures of high school in movies like Hughes'.

Jake may talk in a monotone and feel stuck but he isn't a real outcast--his life is Geekhood lite. He's at least in the school band, he enjoys getting drunk in Mexico with his older brother, and his long search for a girlfriend meets with a reward in the end.

It would be nice if the movie spent a bit less time on the tears and more on the fun times, but it's true, high school is a world of dramas when each day is the end of the world for someone. Hannah's the hardest hit. Her long-time boyfriend dumps her (all such assassinations are now conducted by Text Messaging). It turns out her mother is bi-polar and her father absent and she's essentially raised by her granny. The rejection leads to a depression so severe she can't go back to school for 17 days and she almost loses her chance to graduate.

Hannah has a tough journey ahead of her. But she takes anti-depressants, drags herself back to school, and learns to smile again. In the end she's the only one in Burstein's group who dares to see beyond the horizon. She doesn't just want to be on the winning team or get into Notre Dame. She wants to become a filmmaker and she wants to get out of Indiana. San Francisco State is her goal. Her parents reunite on camera to be surprisingly mean. They won't support her and her mother tries to scare her about being "alone in a big city."

Meanwhile after Hannah comes back to school, Mitch, who's always been attracted to her, starts to date her. Well, a Heartthrob can choose whom he pleases, and Hannah finds him quite charming and fun. Opposites attract: maybe she completes him. They have a little whirl. But when she accompanies him to Megan's house with all the popular kids, it's a disaster. Like the male in Neil LaBute's play 'Fat Pig,' Mitch dumps Hannah because no matter how happy they are together, and they evidently are, peer pressure tells him she won't do. But Hannah survives that and goes to San Francisco planning to work for a year till she becomes a California resident and can hope to pay the fees of SF State. Hannah is a brave and determined soul and a free spirit and for my money, the coolest kid in 'American Teen.'

I'm rooting for Hannah. She could live to make an 'American Teen' of her own--a richer, more comprehensive, less packaged one. Please don't tell me this documentary is funnier than 'Napoleon Dynamite' or wittier than 'Juno.' It's not. And when it comes to dissecting and recombining the categories, it can't beat 'Freaks and Geeks.' But it has one big advantage. These kids are, more or less, taken directly from real life. This is the winning mainstream documentary of the summer of 2008.