Title:  Kids in America

Release Date:  2005

Nationality and Language: USA, English

Running time: 97 min

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Distributor and Production Company: Launchpad, Slow Hand Cinema (and TheWB/Warner Independent Pictures??)

Director; Writer: Josh Stolberg; written Josh Stolberg, Andrew Shaifer (and Gregory Smith?)

Producer: Andrew Shaifer

Cast:   Gregory Smith, Alex Anfanger, Stephanie Sherrin, Chris Morris, Katie Carmichael, Emily Chua, Julie Bowen, Malik Yoba, Andrew Shaifer

Technical:  standard aspect, 35mm, dolby digital

Relevance to DOASKDOTELL site:  1st Amendment, student and teacher free speech

 

When I designed the backcover of my first “Do Ask Do Tell” book I somehow miscalibrated the age of the Bill of Rights, saying it was 160 years; and many copies I hand-applied a sticker to change the number to 210. I did correct this for the second printing, of course. I don’t know how that happened; many eyes missed it. Actually, the date of the Bill of Rights (12/15/1791) is the accepted date in history books – (here is a good web reference: http://www.magnet1.com/constitution.htm ) - figures in to the story, as “The Kids” plaster their high school lockers and walls with “12/15” as one of their peaceful protest tactics against Principal Weller (Julie Bowen) in this drama-comedy of constructive student rebellion.

 

The story features several incidents early on, as Weller suspends a girl for wearing condoms on her dress (when the girl claims to be promoting abstinence), suspends another for an overly graphic paragraph written in a free journal period in English class (a short journal period in a notebook is a common practice in high school English), and then suspends and then expels Holden Donovan (Gregory Smith) for a stunt in a school acting performance.

 

Now here we have to get into more of the setup. Most of the action centers around film, drama, and English classes where the kids are making videos and setting up short drama skits. (On a substitute teaching assignment last year I actually supervised a class where “kids” edited an entertaining instructional film on chemistry, using Premiere and other editing tools.)  One girl has made a video “manifesto” appeal to protest the brutal practice of female clitoral mutilation in some African societies, and her teacher asks (“ask why!”) if it would not have been more appropriate to pick a cause that affected her own family or environment more directly. (This is a good question that probes into the moral underpinnings of one’s own speech.) The tension has been building when Holden pulls off his stunt.

 

He starts with the famous Hamlet (“play within a play”) “To be or not to be,” and hesitates. Then he goes on an effective monologue to protest the administrations treatment of several specific student efforts and then says that he is “not to be.”  He then fakes suicide and slitting his wrists, then of course gets up and demos the prop underneath his long sleeve hiding the fake blood. (I’ve known of HIV patients who hide iv’s at work this way, even when working as flight attendants.)  Of course, the administration is “very offended.”

 

Expelled, Holden rather takes over the movie, leading more protests and arranging to rig the microphone systems at school. There is another rather charismatic out gay student Lawrence Reitzer (newcomer Alex Anfanger) who has made a strategic opening appearance in the film nude except for boxer shorts, revealing what is essentially a perfect teenage male body (at least according to many tastes). (There is a photo shot of that scene on rogerebert.com’s review of the film.) Alex has sung and participated in a pivotal manner in various classes. Then he suddenly falls into the (false) gay stereotype when he can’t climb rope in gym class (it would appear that the real life actor would have no problem doing so).  During all the protests, Alex kisses his boyfriend in the school hall within sight of The Principal, and is of course suspended, too. (Who is going to be left behind?)  So Holden engineers all the students to engage in a same-sex kiss-out in front of The Principal. All of this from a character who is cast as energetically heterosexual in his own life as possible, with various making out scenes.

 

Holden will then get himself and several other kids thrown in jail when they try to burn a sign (even using laser alignment pointers) onto the football field to defeat Weller’s bid for election to the School Board.  Lawrence catches on fire in a terrifying moment and is hospitalized, although fortunately his (second degree) burns are not that serious. It’s not clear that this was necessary for the story.

 

Is Holden named after the J. D. Salinger character from The Catcher in the Rye? It seems that his is much more forceful.

 

Apart from Alex Anfanger, in fact, Gregory Smith dominates this movie so thoroughly as the puppetmeister that it seems to me the movie must have been partly his idea. He does play the part as “Ephram plus” (for those viewers familiar with his work as the teenage piano prodigy Ephram in Everwood). He talks with the same colorful metaphors that seem to be Smith’s own personality.   A the end, during the closing credits, he has a six minute “disco break dancing” kiss-out (part of it on the hood of a car), his shirt very loose and half-open as he tries to set a time record. The viewer can look for a couple of minor technical directorial errors here (or maybe there is double entendre).

 

This film is coming out as a platform release, and when I saw it in Arlington VA and an AMC theater on a Sunday afternoon I was the only one in the auditorium. Obviously the film is intended primarily for Cable and DVD. Since TheWB has advertised it on its own network, I would think WB could promote it more successfully if it took over formal distribution (as WIP). It is interesting that this political comedy was released at the same time as Warner Independent Pictures’s hit about McCarthyism, “Good Night, and Good Luck.” And this comedy is one of the most important films of the year, even given the likelihood of a budget under, say, $1 million.

 

***

 

I want to make a note here, to, about the legal issues regarding free speech in schools. There have been many cases over the years. Generally, school administrations can control student speech and teacher on-premises (particularly classroom) speech that would disrupt the school environment or undermine the credibility of accepted curricula. (With gay and lesbian issues in many areas of the country, this can be a problem, as it may also be with some parents.) At one point in the film, principal Weller draws an analogy between her control of students and the Patriot Act after 9/11, a comparison that is obviously inappropriate. There is a paradox here: the school wants to develop critical thinking skills in its students, so it would seem to need freedom of expression. But in public schools, even high schools, students vary so much in cognitive skills with abstract thought that many students need a carefully nurtured environment.

 

Off-campus speech is more edgy, and the legal barrier that a school system would face in proving a student’s or a teacher’s speech to be disruptive would probably he higher. Even so, the presence of the Internet and World Wide Web raises unprecedented issues because of the Web’s global pervasiveness. There have been issues with regard to student web sites that grade or criticize teachers, as well as those that promote certain cultures perceived as anti-social (Gothic, or even gangs). Students have sometimes made statements from home computers that were perceived as threats and have been disciplined as a result. Teacher speech on the Web could become an issue if students found it through search engines and if the speech was somehow perceived as offensive or disruptive. Yet, one would not want schools to be able to censor the content of teacher off-duty speech. Therefore, the responsibilities of the teacher (at least if he or she is responsible for grading students) to mediate his own speech on the Web sounds like a potentially serious subject, maybe for another movie (maybe even mine).

 

Here are some legal references on free speech in public schools:

 

http://www.electronic-school.com/199903/0399ewire.html

 

http://www.aclu-wa.org/Issues/freespeech/04-17-03-FreeSpeechRightsTeachers.html

 

http://www.cla-net.org/resources/articles/minow_libraryspeech.php

 

 

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=4373

 

http://www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/iowa/cases/documents.html?record=382

 

Gregory Smith and Lee Norris (One Tree Hill) sponsor “The U” on TheWB:

http://thewb.warnerbros.com/web/o_generic_blank.jsp?id=WB-The+U

 

I would recommend showing this film along with John Stossel’s ABC 20/20 documentary “Stupid in America: How We Cheat Our Kids”.

 

Also, compare to Freedom Writers (2007, Paramount), link below.

 

Boot Camp (2007, MGM/20th Century Fox/Nomadic CD, dir. Christian Duguay) Gregory Smith, about 24 when he made this and now totally virilized, plays the Holden Caulfield good guy who pretends to be bad to get admitted to a Tough Love (“Serenity”) boot camp for delinquents in the Fijis to rescue a girl friend and expose the Tough Love company as a dangerous scam. Smith’s acting is an interesting mixture of adolescent fervor and grown up idealism: his voice is curiously effective when he tells people off, as when he calls Sophie’s father a “prick” to his face, and later when he tries to save another camper’s life.  Smith should have an interesting career ahead

 

A Wrinkle in Time (2003, Dimension/Disney Channel, dir. John Kent Harrison, novel by Madeleine l’Engle, UK, G, 128 min).  Gregory Smith is the good neighbor kid who accompanies the kids in the next house to another planet to look for their physicist dad caught in a time warp. Great ideas for what it’s like on other planets

 

Chasing Holden (2001, Lions Gate/Christopher Eberts, dir. Malcolm Clarke, 104 min, R). When I was substitute teaching, I had one assignment where the students had to write an in-class book report/review on their summer reading. Some students had selected J. D. Salinger’s famous 1951 novel about teenage rebellion with its protagonist Holden Caulfield. We all know the book – The Catcher in the Rye. I read it in the eyebrow barracks at Fort Eustis, VA in 1968 when I was in the Army, as did some other soldiers who called themselves Rado Suhl, the Walrus, the Ocelot.  The detailed book reviews in that class (other writers chosen included Clive Cussler) were well written, sometimes worthy of commercial publication.  Salinger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._D._Salinger ), born in 1919, has lived as a recluse and has not published since 1965. He resisted quotes of unpublished letters in an unauthorized biography in a famous case. Apparently he does not allow the book to be filmed. So this story about a troubled kid who goes on the lam with a girl friend to “stalk” him is the closest thing to a film adaptation that can exist.  I remember a sentence from the book early on, “old guys’ legs are so white and unhairy.” The movie talks about some episodes in the book, as Holden’s pretending to be deaf-mute in one sequence. Note, by the way, the leading character’s first name (“Holden”) in the movie above, “Kids in America.” It seems intentional.

 

Now the kid, Neil Lawrence (JD Qualls) has been returned to a boarding school in Pennsylvania by his wealthy dad after getting out of a mental hospital. It seems that he had attempted to slit his wrists after a younger brother committed suicide when Dad harassed the brother for being gay, claiming that a “faggot” would stain the family name. Yes, people thought that way, and the whole Holden thing is very much about breaking up the artificial hold that families have on their kids because of the blood loyalty that they supposedly owe back. (A gay person is the rebel because he will not give children, supposedly.) Now Neil, is in fact, enthusiastically heterosexual, although that doesn’t make too much difference. He runs away with girl friend T. J. Jensen (Rachel Blanchard), whom we learn has a hidden brain aneurysm that could pop at any time. His motive: to track down J. D. Salinger and meet him, because the prep school English teacher (Sean Kanan) has assigned a kind of pseudo book report: write a fantasy about what happens to Holden Caulfield after the end of the book. Neil cannot imagine his own story, and insists on getting it from the horse’s mouth. He does run into misadventures, some of them in New York City where, at one point, he points out the apartment building (the Dakota) where John Lennon was murdered by Mark David Chapman (12/8/1980) holding a copy of the novel. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon ). In one sequence he seems to have located Salinger in the country and stalks him, but then lets him go. He must then deal with T. J.’s tragic end.

 

Igby Goes Down (2002, United Artists, dir. Burr Steers, 97 min, R) A 17 year old Igby (Kieran Culkin) flunks out of some prep schools and then winds his away among the Manhattan rich and becomes the darling of older women, although this world of privilege will not live up to his expectations. With Claire Danes, Amanda Peet, Jeff Goldblum, Ryan Philippe, Bill Pullman.  Rory Culin plays Igby at 10. Compare to “Charlie Bartlett”.  

 

Brick (2005, Focus/Bergman Lustig, dir. Rian Johnson, 110 min, R). Well, here we have “the Kids” again, high school students with their self-contained worlds of intrigues and politics. And here, it’s organized crime. This film won a special prize at Sundance. Geeky loner 17-year-old Brendan Fry (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) investigates the disappearance of his girl friend. Soon he finds her corpse at the mouth of a sewage tunnel. With all the right moves, he infiltrates a high school drug ring. After a meeting with an assistant principal (Richard Roundtree) we realize that he may have been “hired” undercover. But Brendan is indeed the perfect kid for the role. His character is a cross between Seth Cohen (The O.C.) and Clark Kent (Smallville) without powers. He, it turns out, has Marine-like fitness and is very hard to put away in a fight, despite his geek glasses. It’s a little hard to believe he could really infiltrate a crime ring because he is too clean – never smoking or doing coke or heroin (I’m told that “brick” is slang for heroin -- but search engines show that the term is commonly used for both drugs -- and to me they all look the same, even if they aren't) himself. He will eventually finger the guilty party, and there will be some surprise. But the teen seems to have moral dominance over everyone else, sort of the way Clark does in Smallville. Gordon-Levitt is a powerful and agile young actor to watch. By the way, the title of the movie refers to a brick of "drugs", but “Brick” was also the name of the main male character of Tennessee Williams’s “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”

As one comment to me says, the storyline and narrative style of this film is very laconic, and presents the character is a singleminded fashion, in order to keep the viewer hooked. That's a screenwriting issue. I came away wanting to know a lot more about the character and the rest of his life, including school. This character could be a good focus for a CW-type series.