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Good story, Not enough for a whole film

best movie i've ever seen.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Although I like documentaries, I tend to favor those about historical events or historical figures with film clips and an off-screen narrator rather than those in which a camera follows "real" people around, supposedly capturing events as they occur without benefit of, well, you know, a script. The presence of a camera changes everything, does it not? The presence of a camera is only too obvious in "American Teen," a supposed documentary that I found as believable as any TV "reality show" or your average bestselling memoir.In this film, the subject is a group of Idaho teenagers who are experiencing their final year of high school. The kids themselves are all stereotypes, even if they are "real." There's the popular girl, the jock, the nerd, the misfit, etc. These are all average kids, we're told, but how many average kids would be willing to subject themselves to exposure in a documentary? Of course, I speak as someone who grew up in the days before the Internet and Facebook, both of which seem to have led to an epidemic of narcissism and a complete lack of concern about something as silly as privacy, so maybe I'm out of touch. Still, it's rather apparent that some of the incidents in "American Teen" are staged.The most obvious example of pre-planning is when Megan, the popular girl, gets back at someone for an offense I don't remember, by spray-painting a nasty word and a nastier drawing on his window. She does it even though she's well aware that she's being filmed. Later, while the cameras are still running, she worries about the possibility of getting caught. Of course, she is caught and called on the carpet by the principal, and it's all caught on film."American Teen" is a phony, and proof that, if you really want to tell the truth, do it with fiction.Brian W. Fairbanks

Before, I have always imagined that the teens in America lead a better life than the Chinese, for they may enjoy better welfare services, however, after seeing the documentary, I understand that the American teens are not so happy. The poor have to struggle for a scholarship to get enrolled in the university, and the rich are also tormented in their personal love or friendship. Just everyone has a story. It is self-evident that we can never be peaceful, problems come to us one after another. What we have to do is to purse what we want, and be active. That will make our life more colorful.Teenagers are the future of our country, so never should be neglect the problem of the young. The government should finance more students in their studies, so they can repay more to the society in the their future career.

I like how in the movie they show all the cliques, because even with everything that goes on in the world. People stick with cliques and what they know because sometimes differences can be fear. A fear of what other people might think if they try something new or hang out with a new person who is not from their clique like Mitch. I love the part when Hannah is on the stage and you hear his voice saying I have been here for four years and I have never met Hannah. Watching him, watch makes you wonder would he actually hang out with her before school was over because he was a jock and she was like the rebel she did things her own way on her own time. Which honestly I wish I could of done in high school just a little.Anyway they actually started hanging out and enjoying each others company until she hung out with him and his friends and it looked like none of them even decided to talk to her which was rude. Like it was like she was not even there. How rude I thought but then again it is high school and it was obvious that his friends didn't want her around and she felt out of place.

American TEEN (2008) *** Documentarian filmmaker Nanette Burstein's exploration into the 21st Century American teenager is often on the mark but feels very manipulative in examining 4 atypical US high school seniors a la John Hughes' THE BREAKFAST CLUB: The Geek, The Jock, The Basket Case, The Princess and The Rebel as a template that has a few surprises in store for those who anticipate the expected usual trials and tribulations of youth: high expectations, stress to excel in curriculum and extracurricular activities to get into a decent college, social awkwardness , growing into one's own persona, and finally accepting the things the way they are, damn the expectations.