The Spectacular Now (2013)

Coming of Age

Drama

The Spectacular Now (2013) on Letterboxd

This was a decent coming of age movie about a high school kid, Sutter, who seems to be a charmer who doesn't take life too seriously, although he also seems to have a bad reputation among some people as well. His girlfriend breaks up with him (how typical) and he meets Aimee, a "normal" girl who ends up liking him. Although Sutter doesn't take the relationship too seriously, he eventually finds himself liking her as well.

Sounds cliché so far and yeah, it is. Aimee and Sutter resolve to fix some personal issues in their lives and although Aimee is able to fix her situation pretty quickly, Sutter's situation isn't easily fixed and leaves him somewhat of a mess.

There's nothing inherently bad about this movie except that it fails to come up with anything original. I guess that's somewhat expected from this genre? Maybe not? This movie kinda reminds me of Columbus (2017), which I really liked for some reason compared to this movie that might be hard to put into words.

Columbus (2017) on Letterboxd

I'm not sure how realistic the portrayal of teenagers becoming independent and practically getting emancipated from their parents in the USA is but assuming that's true, it's quite different from how teenagers usually live out their college days in India, the country I'm in. It's hard for me to imagine teenagers making mature and rational decisions.

I did like the open-ended conclusion of this movie though.

I hereby rate this movie a 3 out of 5. Perhaps if I'm feeling generous, I may award it 4 out of 5 considering I would rate Columbus a 5 out of 5.

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Created: 2023-09-25

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