“The Spectacular Now” stars Miles Teller as Sutter, an 18-year-old high school senior whose philosophy is to live in the moment/live in the “Now”. While I can relate to that, Sutter isn’t taking his “Now” too seriously. He works at a clothing store, but doesn’t care much about academics or his future. He likes to drink, party and score with the ladies.
After one of his “wild” evenings, Sutter meets Aimee (played by “The Descendants”‘ Shailene Woodley). She’s one of the more quiet, unpopular girls at school (a little hard to believe), who’s never had a boyfriend. That quickly changes when Sutter enters the picture. However, “The Spectacular Now” is not one of those perfect, Cinderella stories. The rest of the film chronicles the ups and downs of Sutter and Aimee’s relationship, along with their family issues and college plans.
Going in, I was expecting “The Spectacular Now” to be more powerful than it actually is. You simply sit back and watch this story play-out, but never get emotionally invested in what’s going on. And that’s because it’s all too simple and familiar. There’s only one minor twist in the entire film, and it isn’t handled in a very realistic way. Elements of the film are authentic, while others don’t make a lot of sense. The blatant use of alcohol by Sutter and Aimee at school functions (they don’t even try to hide it) would never be possible at any high school in the country.
Teller and Woodley share their screentime together well and each has a few effective scenes. The main problem is that the script, by “(500) Days of Summer” writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, based on the 2008 book by Tim Tharp, isn’t unique or powerful enough to capture us and place us “in the moment” with these characters. We’ve seen many of these plotlines before, done in much more interesting ways. Let’s hope my senior year in high school includes more surprises than this film provides.
The supporting cast includes Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Sutter’s older sister, Jennifer Jason Leigh as his struggling mother, and Kyle Chandler as Sutter’s father, who he hasn’t seen in 10 years. Everyone is solid. Earlier this summer, “The Way, Way Back” told a different kind of teen “coming of age story”. While I didn’t love that film either, it has a little more heart and a few strong, memorable performances (Steve Carell and Sam Rockwell) that make it the pick out of these two.
“The Spectacular Now” is rated R for language, alcohol use and adult content. It’s appropriate for older teens and up. This film looks good and is passable entertainment but, unfortunately, it doesn’t come close to living-up to its title.
On The Official LCJ Report Card, “The Spectacular Now” gets a C+.