BY MIKEY MIGO
I completely forgot about this movie. When it was released it looked interesting, but it was really kept on the down low in terms on promotion and press. The main selling point for me with it was potentially seeing Zach Galifianakis doing something more dramatic than his normal comedy stuff. I knew the other leads. Keir Gilchrist is the son on “United States of Tara” and Emma Roberts keeps popping up in interesting projects all the time. This movie is about a teenager who commits himself into a psychiatric hospital after considering suicide. If every teenager did this, schools would be empty. Any who, we have Keir in the lead. He’s a completely normal insecure, confused, and lost youth. He shows up and meets Galifianakis and a slew of other “characters” including Emma Roberts. They put the few teenagers in the adult ward because of downsizing. I don’t think that’d ever happen either. My issues with this movie aren’t with the narrative, but how it treats its location. It glorifies psychiatric hospitals and institutions as being a big fun campy-type of place with weird, eccentric, and fun personalities. The biggest “outburst” in the movie is Zach throwing a few VERY mild temper tantrums. It’s so far from how things really are it’s almost insulting. The narrative is basically saying that Keir’s problems are normal and he can overcome them. Same with Emma, who starts to fall for him. Keir does great in the role. He could easily step in and take the “gritty indie teen roles” that Lou Taylor Pucci is too old for now. The movie is 101 minutes long and he carries it well and I don’t really think there was one point at all in the movie that I was bored. I thought Galifianakis was good too. He had some dramatic situations and handled them well, he had great lines, and was a good “guide” for the troubled teen. I think I was expecting something else, maybe something “more”, but I can’t complain too much. The movie looked great. The direction was interesting and the editing was cool. In terms of “craft”, the movie rocks. My main issues are that the trailer presented the movie as something way more serious than what we’re presented, the way psychiatric hospitals are presented, and its lack of something bigger. I didn’t really have expectations for this movie because like I said, I completely forgot about it, so I can’t complain. It was entertaining, but not enthralling. It was emotive, but not really emotional. It was good, but not great. Take the indie cliché’s out of the movie it’s barely more than a teenage rom com, set in a psychiatric hospital. Regardless of that, I can’t hate this movie. B
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