Tanner Hall (2009)

Tanner Hall is a vivid peek into the private world of an all-girls boarding school. In a cozy, but run down New England, the knot of adolescent complexity is unraveled through the coming of age stories of four teen-age girls.

Directors:

Francesca Gregorini, Tatiana von Furstenberg

Writers:

Tatiana von Furstenberg, Francesca Gregorini

Stars:

Rooney Mara, Georgia King, Brie Larson

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Rooney Mara	...	Fernanda
Georgia King	...	Victoria
Brie Larson	...	Kate
Amy Ferguson	...	Lucasta
Tom Everett Scott	...	Gio
Amy Sedaris	...	Mrs. Middlewood
Chris Kattan	...	Mr. Middlewood
Shawn Pyfrom	...	Hank
Ryan Schira	...	Peter
Susan Misner	...	Roxanne (as Susie Misner)
Tara Subkoff	...	Gwen
Annika Peterson	...	Olga
Alaina Lauren Steinberg	...	Margaret (as Alaina Steinberg)
Konstantine Kakanias	...	Mr. Tependris
Lowry Marshall	...	Ms. Wallace

Storyline

Tanner Hall is a vivid peek into the private world of an all-girls boarding school. In a cozy, but run down New England, the knot of adolescent complexity is unraveled through the coming of age stories of four teen-age girls.

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Plot Keywords:

boarding school | coming of age | new england | older man younger woman relationship | teenage girl | 

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Taglines:

Lose your way. Find yourself.

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Genres:

Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for sexual content including brief nudity, and some drug use

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

9 October 2009 (USA)

Also Known As:

Os Segredos de Tanner Hall

Filming Locations:

Providence, Rhode Island, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$3,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$2,803 (USA) (9 September 2011)

Gross:

$5,005 (USA) (16 September 2011)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Tax Credit Finance, Two Prong Lesson

Technical Specs

Runtime:

96 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

Rooney Mara's first name is used as her character's last name,when Victoria returns Gio's letter to Fern's mailbox, her full name is Fernanda Rooney.

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Soundtracks

"Your Ex-Lover Is Dead"
Written by Chris Seligman, Amy Millan, Torquil Campbell, Evan Cranley, Patrick McGee
Published by Arts & Crafts Music Inc. (SOCAN)
Performed by Stars
Courtesy of Arts & Crafts International

User Reviews

Very pretty but not very substantial

As a young lad, I often fantasized about attending an all-girl boarding school in New England, or maybe someplace in Europe. However, there was always one obvious obstacle to my dream. One minor character in this movie has overcome this obstacle--he gets to attend the titular all-female institution because he is the head-mistress' son. The MAIN characters in the film though are four girls--three long-time school chums and a childhood friend of one of them, who transfers to the school and serves as kind of a catalyst for all the melodrama that follows.

There IS a goodly amount of melodrama--two of the girls get involved with older men. One (Brie Larson) flirts with her English teacher (Chris Kattan) mostly just for her own amusement, but ends up inadvertently causing great problems between him and his sexually frustrated fellow teacher/wife (Amy Sidaris). The other girl, the main protagonist (Rooney Mara) embarks on a much more serious affair with an expectant father (Tom Everett Scott), who happens to be married to her mother's best friend. A third girl has questions about her sexual identity. But perhaps the most troubled girl is the newcomer (Georgia King) whose obsession with cutting herself and history of suicide attempts are the result of childhood trauma that is alluded to early on, but not revealed until the end.

Let me say first off that if the very many high-school age girls looked like Rooney Mara and Brie Larson, pretty much all adult heterosexual men would be in jail right now. But this movie was directed by two women, so it never really veers too much into exploitation territory. This would not necessarily be a liability if it worked better as a straight drama, but all the characters remain undeveloped as individuals and never really gel as a group. The movie also really tries to cover too much in 90 minutes, going into the lives of all four girls AND several of the adults (particularly the two teachers played Kattan and Sedaris). It's hard to fault any of the actors here though. Rooney Mara, for instance, would go on to play another sexy schoolgirl in "Youth in Revolt" before hitting the big-time with the US version of "Girl with a Dragon Tattoo". She's achingly lovely in this movie, but--like everyone else--not a fully developed character you can care much about. Her character is kind of indicative of the whole movie--very pretty, but somehow not very substantial.