Splatter: on FILM

High school films fall short despite their attempts at brutal honesty. What Mean Girls meant to decades of squads unsung unrecognized, to those who never got their 15 minutes of Breakfast Club fame. What Bill & Ted and Bring it On did to cultural shifts in lingo. What Urban Dictionary has done for teachers’ attempts at relevance and avoiding accidental overshares. What Dead Poet’s still does to scratch the surface of the wound still scarred. This film. This little “indy” ace did again. In a 500 Days of Summer way, it About a Boy‘s its Will Hunting guts straight into the marrow of your film loving heart.

Honest, real, alive, funny, and heartbreaking. The lines oddly give so little insight into the characters. A film teacher once told me, “Characters are what they do.” No film seems to present that in a truer way. These teens speak in circles but it’s what they do that moves you.Friends are just there. They stay there and keep coming over. They enter your world and learn about you. They may try to keep you laughing, they may say they don’t care. They may be dumb and you may be too, but it doesn’t matter. This movie is about real friendship, real grief, real life. If you’re not ready for that, don’t see it.