One of the audience members at the Sundance premiere asked Holly Hunter why she agreed to do this low budget project. Her answer was that the script had an "authenticity" which attracted her.
She's a fine actress and not a bad film critic either. The film really takes a major step toward fusing valid, commercially-viable dramatic structure with cinema verite. It is the story of a 13 year old girl, as written by a 13 year old girl and an auteur. It is, I am certain, not purely autobiographical. The girl took bits and pieces out of her own life and other lives around her to try to tell the world what it is like to be a 13 year old girl and face the inherent peer pressure. The adult co-author brought in some cohesive storylines, and a pretty good film was born. Voila! Neo-realism. It's all true, in a sense, and as Ms Hunter noted, "authentic", yet it is a film which can be watched by mainstream audiences who are consciously in need of a plot and conflict/resolution.
It shares a sense of immediacy with the works of Dogme or cinema verite auteurs, but it is much more polished than implied by that statement. Although the young girl provided the details of the characters, music, and atmosphere, the director and cinematographer used some polished suggestive techniques to shape and reinforce the storyline, moving to a richer saturation, a full pallette, and softer focus when the young girl is first accepted by the cool crowd, then desaturating, moving to harsher lighting and a cooler pallette when it all goes sour.
A good first movie from Catherine Hardwicke, doing precisely what independent films probably should do - personalizing, experimenting, trying to get inside of real characters.
In fact, Ms Hardwicke and Miss Reed (the co-authors) originally thought they might come up with a teen comedy, but the reality they uncovered wrote itself as a slice-of-life psychological drama. A good 7th grade girl wants to be accepted by the cool crowd. Her quest for acceptance leads to a dangerous, reckless friendship with the "hottest chick in her school", which leads to experimentation with sex, drugs, lies, shoplifting, and attitude. Her dysfunctional family struggles to get past their own problems long enough to see her crisis and (maybe)rescue her.
Bravo for neo-realism. Whoda thunk that someone making a movie about a 13 year old girl would ask a 13 year old girl to be her co-author? Not Hollywood.
The film will probably be rated R without requiring any major cuts. There is teen experimentation with drugs and sex, but no nudity from the teens. The adults also engage in some drug use and violence. There are some graphic scenes of piercing and self-mutilation. Holly Hunter does a fairly long topless scene, and the camera follows her down into a crouch, revealing a brief frontal. When the film is presented in a theatrical aspect ratio, the frontal shot will probably disappear until a full screen version is available on home media.
She's a fine actress and not a bad film critic either. The film really takes a major step toward fusing valid, commercially-viable dramatic structure with cinema verite. It is the story of a 13 year old girl, as written by a 13 year old girl and an auteur. It is, I am certain, not purely autobiographical. The girl took bits and pieces out of her own life and other lives around her to try to tell the world what it is like to be a 13 year old girl and face the inherent peer pressure. The adult co-author brought in some cohesive storylines, and a pretty good film was born. Voila! Neo-realism. It's all true, in a sense, and as Ms Hunter noted, "authentic", yet it is a film which can be watched by mainstream audiences who are consciously in need of a plot and conflict/resolution.
It shares a sense of immediacy with the works of Dogme or cinema verite auteurs, but it is much more polished than implied by that statement. Although the young girl provided the details of the characters, music, and atmosphere, the director and cinematographer used some polished suggestive techniques to shape and reinforce the storyline, moving to a richer saturation, a full pallette, and softer focus when the young girl is first accepted by the cool crowd, then desaturating, moving to harsher lighting and a cooler pallette when it all goes sour.
A good first movie from Catherine Hardwicke, doing precisely what independent films probably should do - personalizing, experimenting, trying to get inside of real characters.
In fact, Ms Hardwicke and Miss Reed (the co-authors) originally thought they might come up with a teen comedy, but the reality they uncovered wrote itself as a slice-of-life psychological drama. A good 7th grade girl wants to be accepted by the cool crowd. Her quest for acceptance leads to a dangerous, reckless friendship with the "hottest chick in her school", which leads to experimentation with sex, drugs, lies, shoplifting, and attitude. Her dysfunctional family struggles to get past their own problems long enough to see her crisis and (maybe)rescue her.
Bravo for neo-realism. Whoda thunk that someone making a movie about a 13 year old girl would ask a 13 year old girl to be her co-author? Not Hollywood.
The film will probably be rated R without requiring any major cuts. There is teen experimentation with drugs and sex, but no nudity from the teens. The adults also engage in some drug use and violence. There are some graphic scenes of piercing and self-mutilation. Holly Hunter does a fairly long topless scene, and the camera follows her down into a crouch, revealing a brief frontal. When the film is presented in a theatrical aspect ratio, the frontal shot will probably disappear until a full screen version is available on home media.