The Spectacular Now

                                                                   

              Growing up I always had a pretty utopian view on what being a teenager in high school would be like. Once I got there, it was nothing like what I had thought, and plus we had no kids that looked like James Spader. Just because high school was not like a John Hughes film didn't make it a bad thing, I just think I would have had more fun at those schools than mine. Now a day in the perfect world is not what people want, they want something real, and in “The Spectacular Now” it feels like what being a teenager feels like today.

              Now being a middle-aged man this is only a guess, but it sure feels right on. Sutter (Miles Teller) is that guy everyone likes, you know the life if any party. Sutter is enjoying every minute of high school, great times, and a great girlfriend named Cassidy (Brie Larson) to top it off. Sutter also likes to drink, and not the typical teenage drinking, he goes as far as carrying a flask and even putting alcohol in anything he drinks.  After Cassidy breaks up with him, Sutter drinks a little too much and ends up passed out in the front of a house, not his own. He is found by Aimee (Shailene Woodley), who knows Sutter from school. Sutter starts to gather interest in Aimee, but all the while hoping to land back with the women he thinks he wants in Cassidy. Aimee has never had a boyfriend and quickly starts to fall for Sutter hard. With school ending soon, Sutter is all about the now, and has no idea what his future will hold, he never wants to grow up, because where is the fun in that?

            A lot of people think that their high school years were their highest point in their life. I mean you have no worries, no responsibilities, you just live life. Everything is easier, including love because how innocent everything is.  Sutter and Aimee are at that point where things start to move, college and life are in front of them making them have to make choices they never had to before. Written by Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber (500 Days of Summer) from the book by Tim Tharp, the story is a real coming of age story. I know that is a bad description, but where so many coming of age stories fail, this one soars. It is all perfectly directed by James Ponsoldt (Smashed), who set the movie in his home town of Athens, Georgia, and even shot the film in locations he grew up in. It all comes together by the flawless performances by Woodley and Teller who are perfect for each other on screen. I sometimes think what it would be like to grow up in this day and age, well I think I just got to see what life is like today and like this movie it looks spectacular.

  Brian Taylor