Susan Granger’s review of “Short Term 12” (Cinedigm)
Written and directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, this poignant psychological drama about
troubled teens has been receiving accolades at SXSW and film festivals in Little Rock, Nantucket, Maui, Los Angeles and Locarno, Switzerland.
Twentysomething Grace (Brie Larson) is a group supervisor at a live-in foster-care facility for
at-risk kids. She works with her supportive, long-time boyfriend Mason (John Gallagher Jr.) and new employee Nate (Rami Malek), trying to comfort troubled residents like about-to-turn 18 Marcus (Keith Stanfield), who is terrified about living on his own for the first time, yet can only express his fear and fury in a rap song. But it’s the arrival of violently angry Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever), who writes and illustrates a revelatory fable about an octopus and a shark that pressures Grace not only to acknowledge her own difficult past but come to terms with her unanticipated future. Grace, Mason and Nate aren’t therapists; as counselors, their job is to create a safe environment and keep the damaged adolescents in their protection from hurting themselves and others. But sometimes they perceive more than the mental health professionals, and tension escalates when their
evaluations and suggested treatments don’t align with the observations of the ever-vigilant
staffers.
Basing the poignant story on his own experience working at a similar institution, Destin Daniel Cretton’s direction is realistic and unsentimental in its earnest depiction of the place and the people who inhabit it, enhanced by Brett Pawlak’s handheld camerawork and Joel P. West’s score. In interviews, Cretton says he was inspired by “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Hoop Dreams.”
John Gallagher Jr., who won a 2007 Tony in the Broadway production of “Spring Awakening” and plays the lovelorn senior producer on HBO’s “The Newsroom,” oozes sheepish likeability, while Brie Larson (“21 Jump Street”) is captivating, convincingly inhabiting her conflicted character.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Short Term 12” is a sensitive, distressing 7. This is a banner year for Brie Larson who also appears in the upcoming “The Spectacular Now” and “Don Jon.”
