One of the most memorable and incredibly special stories of this decade arrived quietly. Much like it’s subject matter and it’s characters, this independent drama is an unassuming project that’s got some pretty immense bravery and a hefty heart within. If it’s not on your radar, it should be, for 5 good reasons.
Runtime: 1hr 37
- Brie Larson as Grace
Before she agreed to take on the MCU’s first female-superhero lead in the upcoming Captain Marvel, Brie turned in her first performance of a similar vein in Short term 12. Certainly a quieter, less self-assured figure, but there is no doubt that Grace – a social worker that pulls shifts as a guardian in the ‘short-term’ group home for troubled children – is a towering hero. If you know anything about Larson’s public persona you will not be surprised that she carries off the compassion and warmth that this character entails so well, but neither does she falter when the material gets its darkest. As the supervisor is forced to confront her own horrific past when meeting depressed new-comer Jayden (a heartbreaking turn by Kaitlyn Dever) Brie keeps us watching and believing, fingers-crossed for the triumph of Grace.
2. The kids are (barely) alright
This is a film about the life of kids in halfway home who come from unfathomable trauma: abuse, abandonment, mental illness. It’s about growing up in the face of such obstacles, and mostly it’s about the goodness that can still prevail when someone is really, truly, looking out for these kids. If the home and the screen are going, therefore, to be filled with complicated youngsters, they better be good. And they are. All the young cast-members (including Get out’s Keith Stanfield as the steadfast Marcus, Dever as Jayden, Alex Calloway as the manic poster-child and home’s serial escapee Sammy) are brilliant and the characters – equally charismatic and volatile – are all beautifully fleshed out in their own right. The family dynamic between the supervisors and their charges is so well expressed and touching, the film is simply luminescent with it.
3. The screenplay
It’s a difficult subject matter, and Destin Daniel Cretton (also the director) does everything right with his nuanced writing. The story observes a variety of issues unflinchingly, face-on, but it doesn’t exploit the backgrounds of it’s characters. It is honest without romanticisation, or fetishisation, of tragedy. It observes real struggle, with real feeling and realistic dialogue. The tone shifts masterfully from comedy to drama in a way that I can only summarise in the journey of one cupcake at around the middle of the film; first appearing as a poignant gift, then utilised as a weapon during a violent anxiety attack, before finally ending up as a slapstick smear all over Grace’s face, the cupcake encapsulates everything. Rest assured you are meant to laugh and cry in equal measure – an emotional spectrum that the best of cinema always achieves.
4. Underseen
Despite being one of the shining examples of what magic good writing, directing, and acting can create in an american industry unfortunately saturated with just the opposite, 12 is still pretty underrated. The film is as much of an underdog as the inhabitants of short term 12, but if the message of the story is anything it is to band together to give the underdogs a fighting chance. So give the film it’s chance to impress you.
5. The end
It might be reductive to recommend a film’s closure as one of it’s highlights, but this is a special case. The payoffs are immense and, for all it’s acknowledgement and exploration of the damage of child abuse, the end gently offers it’s protagonists (and us) a return to hope. It’s last note is spirited with the idea that a new morning will not fix everything, but could be enough. For this it is a bittersweet treasure; a film about the short-term, sure to leave a long-term impression.
5 reasons to see ... 