Stars: Brie Larson, John Gallagher, Jr., Kaitlyn Dever, Rami Malek, Alex Calloway, LaKeith Stanfield
Director: Destin Cretton
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars
I honestly don't know that I've seen a preview for Short-Term 12 yet. I had it on my "to see" list fairly early (it was getting strong buzz well before it opened), but I knew next to nothing about the film headed into the theater. This, I have oftentimes said, is how movies would work in the perfect world-people wouldn't need trailers. You'd just hear some buzz and head out to a great flick cold turkey. Of course, that is a bit kumbaya, but for a film like ST12, it really made it an enchanting and magical experience.
(Spoilers ahead) The film, while solid as an ensemble, is primarily the story of Grace (Larson), a woman in her mid-to-late twenties (I'm aware that Larson is 23 in real life, but she felt more like she was playing 27-28). She works at a foster care center for at-risk teens along with her boyfriend Mason (Gallagher) and new coworker Nate (Malek). As the film progresses, we get to see Grace interact with a number of the teens in her stead, and we see her bond particularly with a young girl named Jayden (Dever), with whom she shares a similar past.
The film goes through familiar territory in some ways, with Grace coming to terms with the abuse she suffered at the hand of her father when she was a teenager (he is just about to get out of prison for raping her, we learn throughout the film, and her mother is dead), but the film never feels like an after-school special or a retread of past movies. This is largely driven by some key decisions by the director.
For starters, the story never goes into flashbacks to tell the story. This is a powerful tool in the film, because it relies on the character's testimonials and things that we must infer from the performances on-screen. Like real life, not all the pieces are explained, but you can put them together fairly easily if you're paying enough attention. When you finally hear Grace admit to someone (Jayden) her abuse, it's less a surprise and more of a relief for the audience, who have been desperate for her to find some sort of tranquility in what has been a rough-and-unfair life.
Larson's performance is another huge asset for the director. Larson has been making small waves in television series like United States of Tara and movies like Scott Pilgrim vs. the World for a few years now, but this is easily the best thing she's achieved in her short career. She humanizes and grounds Grace quite quickly, and pulls off a tricky task: she makes Grace's realizations feel very organic to her life. You don't get the sense that Grace as a person started the second the cameras began rolling-this is a woman who has a personal epiphany, but also clearly has been living her life for a while. She's comfortable in her job, she's found a groove in her relationship (the chemistry between Larson and Gallagher is spectacular) and she manages to find a rich, introverted personality in this character.
While Larson is the center of the film, the supporting cast is filled with greatly felt characters. Kaitlyn Dever's Jayden never falls into cliche-she may be an outcast with a smart mouth, but she doesn't come across in a stereotypical goth-teenager sort of way like you see so frequently in youth film roles. Gallagher, who many may now for his work on The Newsroom or Spring Awakening (I think I was first introduced to him when he did terrific work in Jerusalem at the Music Box) somehow takes his hipster kid-in-a-man's-body Mason and gives him great soul and tenderness, underneath a toilet humor-infused goofiness. Really, even the minute characters in the film make their moments matter-there's no performance that doesn't feel heartfelt and lived-in; casting director Rich Delia deserves some sort of raise or medal for putting this crew together.
It seems unfair to discuss this in terms of Oscar, because everyone does that and because it's unlikely to score, but it achieves something far more important; this is a truly great movie. It's hard to put all the warmth and humor and heart and soul that it evokes into words, but it's something very special, and if you haven't taken the opportunity to see it in your town, you need to make the effort to see this in theaters so that we get more movies like it. And if your town doesn't have it playing, start talking to your local movie theater proprietor, because that's the only way they'll learn.
Those are my thoughts-what are yours? Did you find Short-Term 12 to be a home run also? What do you think will be the next career moves for Larson, Gallagher, and Dever? And what other great Indy films are being under-advertised that we should all be investigating? Share below!
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