"Short Term 12" FIlm Review

    

"Short Term 12"

    Though a film about troubled youth trying to find their way in a unforgiving world isn't exactly untrodden ground, “Short Term 12” (written and directed by Destin Daniel Cretton)is unlike anything else you've seen before. Set in a group home for troubled teenagers called Short Term 12, we come to love and cherish the delightfully diverse cast of characters that inhabit it's colorful walls. There's Marcus, a tall, brooding aspiring rapper who has a fish named Nas. There's Jayden, an acerbically witty, disarmingly insightful teenage girl who hangs scientific diagrams of penises up as "décor" for her room. Then there's Grace and Mason (Brie Larson and John Gallagher Jr.), the two head caretakers (who are also romantically involved) at Short Term 12, who help mend the wounds of these children's maimed childhoods.

    What propels the well-paced, hilarious, and often heartbreaking story is the true star of an incredible cast, Brie Larson. At first Larson's Grace navigates the troubled waters of angsty teenage emotion with an apparent effortlessness, but never with indifference. But as we realize not so long into the film, Grace has a considerable amount of skeletons in her own closet, many of which have yet to be resolved. As an audience, we why Grace works with troubled kids: she wants to be there for these kids the way nobody was for her. What's more, we know this fairly early in the movie, which is a courageous move on the part of Cretton. It would have been easy and emotionally manipulative for the audience hold all of Grace's problems and have them spill out in some emotionally over-the-top, Oscar-winning moment at the end of the film. But letting the audience in gradually into Grace's tortured psyche grounds the film in reality and makes it all the more compelling. When the “big reveal” of Grace's does happen, there's no cheesy Lifetime music in the background to add any dramatic flair; the despair and anger in Larson's eyes are enough to have you reaching for your handkerchief. Larson, filled to the brim with love, empathy, and unresolved rage, is nothing short of a revelation.

     Serving as the anchor in an emotional sea storm of a film is the ridiculously likable John Gallagher Jr. as the goofy, loving, and selfless Mason. Serving as the foil to Grace's dark past, Mason is the proof of the good that can come from being raised by loving foster parents and his motivation for being a foster parent is thus crystal clear. Though Mason mainly serves as a rock of emotional stability for the rest of the characters, Gallagher absolutely nails it. His Mason is sweet, hilarious, and unabashedly honest.

However, as teenagers Marcus and Jayden, Keith Stanfield and Kaitlyin Dever threaten to steal the show (in the best way possible). Avoiding the cliched archetype of the loud, rebellious teen, Stanfield plays Marcus with captivating stoicism, making the moments where he does come out of his shell (for instance, during a rap about his mother) even more captivating. And while he is black and he is underprivileged, he isn't a black underprivileged teen. Marcus, whether feeding Nas in his colorful fish tank or encouraging the other children to make birthday cards for one of their emotionally distraught housemates, defies the traditional stereotype of African-American males portrayed in films in a refreshing way. Dever also nails the mix of hostility, insecurity, and vulnerability that every teen goes through. One minute dropping one-liners with a hilariously dry monotone, the next literally spitting on her caretakers in an abandonment-fueled rage, Dever dances between the emotional poles of teenage emotion with astonishing dexterity. The intimate moments between her and Larson are so of the films best.

  “Short Term 12” is a film you want to be absolutely perfect because the good outweighs the bad so greatly. However, there are some emotionally big moments that don't quite feel forced but at the same time don't feel as natural we'd like and some characters you'd have liked to know more about. But the film is so compelling and the characters so rich and emotionally accessible, that we just don't give a damn. In only his second feature film, Cretton shows an amazing ability to tell an intimate story without getting in the way. This could also easily be a social commentary of a film about the unloved children of society, but Cretton also wisely strays away from that path. This film, from opening to end credits, is purely about characters. And perhaps best of all, the film doesn't try to wrap any pretty red bows at the end. Some issues are left unresolved, but that is okay because this isn't a film about closure and making all the darkness of the past simply disappear. It's a film that says we all go through horrible things, some worse than others, but what makes life tolerable are the relationships we form with those around us and the love that results. It's a message that could easily come across as cliched and hackneyed, but instead is just beautiful.