The Spectacular Now

Hollywood loves making movies about high school students, with hopes of attracting young audiences to the theaters. But most follow a predictable formula, separating the beautiful cool kids from the nerds (who also happen to be beautiful, once they take off their glasses). High school students who look like they’re in their 20s and 30s learn their lesson by the ending credits: The jock misjudged the nerd and now they’re in love. Even minor characters find significant others.

But anyone who has ever stepped into a high school knows it was never that simple. The Spectacular Now, a new independent film playing in limited release, tries to bottle all those teenage feelings of excitement, confusion, and uncertainty into 100 minutes of authenticity. This complexity makes the film believable, but leaves the viewer, like many teenagers, without any concrete hope outside of trite expectations of what it means to grow up.

In the film, Sutter (Miles Teller), a well-liked senior who believes in living in the moment, wakes up after an all-night bender in the front yard of classmate Aimee Finicky (Shailene Woodley). She doesn’t party, reads science-fiction, and has never had a boyfriend. A romance buds between the unlikely pair, and they start to learn from each other.

While this sounds like the set-up of every typical high school drama, the similarities end there. Teller and Woodley actually look and sound like students at a local high school, and their personalities are more complex than the one-dimensional Hollywood stereotypes. While Sutter can charm any girl or any teacher, it’s a front to keep him from taking anything—including his actions and his future—seriously. Like the current YOLO (you only live once) generation, he’s numbing the pain of an absent father with alcohol, enjoying his spot as king of the high school world, and trying to delay an uncertain future.

Aimee, on the other hand, is thinking beyond graduation to college and her career. But rather than influencing her boyfriend, she’s naively devoted to him. He’s the one influencing her, often negatively.

In one scene, the pair visits Sutter’s estranged father, played by Kyle Chandler, who embodies Sutter’s life philosophy of living for the moment. Suddenly Sutter sees where he could one day end up—living alone, drinking and carousing at the bar, all the while abandoning his family in his quest to savor the moment. Like many adolescents growing up in broken homes, the lack of parental role models makes Sutter’s transition from boy to man even harder, especially given the unhappy adults around him.

The Spectacular Now, rated R for an extended bedroom scene, feels genuine in its portrayal of adolescence thanks to stellar performances by Teller and Woodley, who are natural fits for their roles. It brings to life both the happy moments and the difficulties in transitioning out of high school. Yet for those seeking closure, the film rings hollow: While Sutter’s crutches eventually are stripped away, forcing him to face the reality of his situation, many of his issues remain unresolved as the film draws to a close.

Walking out of the theater, I couldn’t help but wonder: Can anything short of the gospel change someone’s mindset on the purpose of life, the necessity of growing up, and the power to give up the spectacular now for the even infinitely more spectacular eternity?