I found The Spectacular now to be a very refreshing movie to watch. We've all seen the coming of age high school romance blahblahblah thing before, but the film takes you where you didn't expect it to go, and that is one of the qualities that makes it a great experience.
Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley are fantastic, particularly Woodley. I don't know how you can't be a fan of Teller, he is his usual self in this one and adds even more depth to himself. Woodley's as real as it gets in her performance. I didn't notice it until my second viewing in terms of how natural she was, but she was terrific.
Those two are already great to cast as leads, but it's always fun when the casting for anything is just all around fantastic. Tamper your expectations a bit because it's all about the leads in this one, but Coach Taylor, Bubbles, and Saul Goodman are great in the limited time they are on screen. I mean, Kyle Chandler, Andre Royo, and Bob Odenkirk.
The emotional impact of this film really hit me towards the end, and certain factors are very predominant in the movie that you definitely do not expect. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say take away a lot of the laughs you were expecting, and brace yourself for the feels and a very serious tone. This may damper some who came for this because it's from the dudes who did 500 Days of Summer, but It's still very good and the movie is actually funny in the spots it wants to be.
Overall, I think this is absolutely a film you want to see. Where the story goes widens the appeal of this movie by far in my opinion, so if you were just not going to see it or judged it by the trailers, don't. Give it a shot.
