By Tony Frame. Contains very mild spoilers.

---

The ups and downs in a teenage care home is the premise, with Brie Larson leading the cast in this intimate and intriguing drama that manages to keep you hooked, despite its bleakness in parts. The story is clearly written from first-hand experience and therefore it transports you into a world that’s not often seen. There are many little moments of realism in the movie that it almost crosses the line of feeling like a documentary in places. I’m talking about things like characters drawing and doodling, writing, watching TV, cutaways like that. The screenplay and idea is a testament to the Scorsese film-school of writing – of writing what you know, and writing something personal. It’s the small details in the script (like the ones I’ve just mentioned) that makes this rise way above Hollywood equivalents like Girl Interrupted and films of a similar nature. The world in Short Term 12 feels real. It doesn’t feel like a set where Angelina Jolie is sitting pretty in and reciting her lines.

As for Brie Larson; well, I’ve not seen many (if any) films with her in them before this, but this (being her first lead role) shows how good her range is as she puts on one face as a support worker which then fades away when her character is off duty, only to reveal a broken and emotionally unstable person who’s just as messed up as the children she’s trying to help. There’s a lot of internal conflicts and pressures going on with her portrayal; a less experienced actor would have struggled putting these emotions across with such subtlety at times, a less experienced actor would have overacted the more vocal scenes. I’d imagine that at the end of some of the shooting days on Short Term 12 that Larson would have felt so tired and emotionally drained from all the effort that she put into her performance, that’s how invested she was. Aspiring actors should watch this film and study her; recite some of the scenes for showreel material, that’s how meaty a role she has. A role in which she nails all of the emotional cues to a tee.

So what did I really think? Well, I loved it – I thought it was a classic piece of Indie cinema; it’s a movie that probably went under the radar for many cinephiles. It’s one that will go on my 100 Indie Films To See list, that’s for sure. It draws you in from the outset and is filled with solid performances from everyone involved. Kudos, obviously, has to go to writer / director Dustin Daniel Cretton for bringing all of the elements together and creating a movie that is both inspiring and harrowing at the same time.

Images courtesy of IMDB