Film

American Teen

Name: American Teen
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2008
Cast: Hannah Bailey, Megan Krizmanich, Colin Clemens, Jake Tusing, Mitch Reinholt

Nanette Burstein spent a year following five seniors in Warsaw, Indiana, and cut the footage until it looks suspiciously like scripted teen fiction — the jock, the princess, the artsy outsider, the heartthrob, the nerd. It's gossipy, tender, occasionally too neat to feel entirely honest, and it asks a real question: how much of adolescence was always a performance anyway. For anyone who still remembers exactly where they sat in the cafeteria.

TMDb rating

6.4

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