Any enjoyment I may have experienced watching this film was killed by a nagging doubt that what I was watching was authentic.
Is it just me ... or does this film smell fishy? Not only is the camera ALWAYS in the right place when key events occur but each shot has degree of polish that would seem to have required a lot of advanced planning.
This feels like some sort of mockumentary and I'm amazed it has been so positively reviewed. Is America this naive?
Even if this film is real, it doesn't give us any more insight into the world of teen cliques than we got 25 years ago from John Hughes films. With most documentaries, there is are questions about what liberties were taken for the sake of the presentation but "American Teen" goes beyond that. I'm hoping Nanette Burstein will soon say, "By the way, I hope everyone realizes this was a gag." Otherwise, she has lost all credibility with me.
