The Spectacular Now

Sundance-darling "The Spectacular Now" is a curious one. With a script by the guys who wrote "500 Days of Summer", the movie is about as slice- of-life as they come, and it is interesting and well-acted.

As the film unspools, it may subconsciously remind viewers of the imperfect messiness of Cameron Crowe's teen ode "Say Anything" - complete with a Cusack-like performance by Miles Teller.

Teller's Sutter character is smooth, confident, charming, occasionally- unlikable and flawed. It's an accomplished balancing act.

The centerpiece performance is really Shailene Woodley, as Sutter's new girlfriend Aimee. She gives the most natural performance of a teenager on screen in ages. Her unaffected, open assignment elevates every scene she's in.

Both performances are in service of a film that drifts through the senior high students' last weeks before the end of high school, and takes a mutedly-pessimistic approach of the future before our two leads. These two kids are invisibly shackled to their town, in their home life, their pasts. Echoing the crux at the centre of 1989's "Say Anything", Aimee figures an escape plan; Sutter seems to be blindly comfortable in his 'spectacular' now.

Pulling "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" alum Jennifer Jason-Leigh into the film as Sutter's world-worn mother was a nice touch. Her vacant-eyed mother is in keeping with the film's less-glamorous take.

The picture labours a bit too much in over-emphasizing Sutter's crutch, and the mid-film scenes visiting Sutter's estranged father had trouble finding the right tone between character and caricature. The movie doesn't feel any urgency to build to a conclusion, but when it does, it is understated, uneventful - kind of like our two characters, and sort of like real-life, too.

Life is messy, as is "The Spectacular Now". It eschews the studio slickness and over-plotted determination of more polished teenage products. Despite two grounded, award-worthy lead performances, this film seemed a touch sketched and ever-so-slightly inert.

May contain spoilers!!!

Gushing reviews here, so I must be the odd man out, but nothing about this film was believable -- all the way down to bars serving high school kids drinks, and a mother that seems to be unaware of parental legal liability for under-age drinking.

Sutter's super cool popularity is told to us, but never shown. The cool guys in high school always had a posse to roll with. This character has one pseudo friend, and rolls alone most of the time. At graduation, there's not a single male friend around to high-five and take selfies. That's not popular -- that is the geeky nerd that wishes they had just one good friend to hang with. You can't write scenes like this that totally betray the essence of the character you presented and expect anyone to buy it.

His ex girlfriend demands a relationship with a future? Seriously, at 18 years old? I don't know a single teenage girl thinking of college that wants to get that serious with a guy. There is way too much life to explore to be worrying about domestic bliss -- no matter how much you like a guy.

One could understand the characters appeal to a young girl without a lot of male attention, but this is girl (Amy) that has as much of a sense of what she wants in life as his ex-g.f., and his drunken charm would wear thin quickly.

These characters do not resemble high school kids in the least. College frat types -- yes, but not high school.

I wanted to see this film to soothe my wife. She usually loves adolescent romance stuff, so I thought I would suffer through it. Instead, I ended up liking it more than she did.

The thing about romance films and adolescence films in particular is that the kids are presented like complete idiots, like aliens from the planet Dumb. In order to keep up with this superficial image all other characters must act the same. The result is a complete fake.

The Spectacular Now is nothing like that. From the start it portrays teens as complex, intelligent, troubled about their past and their future, maybe laid back alcoholics or chronically shy or overachievers with low self esteem. And they all interact like human beings. It's a joy to see a film like this.

I also loved that they didn't use the cheap tricks of romance movies in general. No evil adversary to define the character as good, no ultimate goal to direct the entire film from point A to point B, no artificial accidents or catastrophes to move people out of their stupor, no highschool cliques, no Facebook or Twitter dramas. Instead, normal people doing normal stuff, trying to get over themselves and have a happy life.

The film was not without its flaws. It was a little too slow, for once. It only lasted an hour and a half but it felt like more. Also there is a somewhat seamless jump of a few years that takes the viewer by surprise (I still don't know when it happened). Also, I am a bit grumpy today, the film probably deserved a 9. Go watch it!

Compared to other movie adaptations of teen novels, this is one of the good ones. It stayed true to the book, maybe with a slight alternate ending, but it didn't deviate from the plot. I felt Teller portrayed Sutter very well and both the main leads' acting felt genuine and believable.

The story isn't a predictable one, sure you have a stunning Woodley playing a girl who hasn't ever had a boyfriend, a part that was hard to believe. However, from how Woodley portrays Aimee, the typical nice girl, you can understand from Aimee's character and personality why she hasn't. I wish the movie would have added a bit more of how much Aimee changed because of Sutter, and some of the negative changes too, something that the book focuses a lot more on. I suggest to those planning on watching this to read the book as well, as I found that I got to know the characters a lot better from reading it.

If you're up for a feel-good, light comedy with predictable movie romance formula, this probably isn't that type of flick. I'd call this a more coming-of-age film which definitely has a Say Anything and Kings of Summer vibe, and if you liked The Spectacular Now then I would definitely watch those movies.

This film tells the story of a high school student who parties and drinks hard. He meets a nice girl who is opposite of him, and they influence each other.

The film requires the main characters to be likable in order for viewers to care about them. Unfortunately, I do not care for either Sutter and Aimee. Sutter is an irresponsible young man, while Aimee's character is poorly developed to contrast Sutter. The events that happen in the film are either not engaging or dramatic enough. Even when Aimee gets hit by a car, there is little follow up on it. We do not get to see the emotional reactions of the people around her.

It tries to show the emotional baggage of the past and the difficulties in growing up. However, there is little depth in depicting the characters' psychological states. I find it disappointing.