The truth is often more horrifying than fiction and although Short Term 12 isn’t based on a true story, it unearths a harsh reality of displaced youth, offset from the spotlight but boiling under the surface of society. Replicating the many broken homes in modern American families, director/writer Destin Cretton has sole custody of this project. Thankfully, he takes this responsibility seriously and delivers a masterclass in realism complimented with standout performances from Brie Larson, John Gallagher Jr., and Keith Stanfield.

His journey is perpendicular to newcomer Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever) who fights tooth and nail to be anywhere but here. While Jayden battles to leave and Marcus tries to work through the backlog of his own demons (with a powerful rap offering a raw view into the tattered loss of his youth), we realize just how short term the stay is here.

It may be limbo but it’s not without it’s guardian angel.Larson’s Grace is that angel. She’s a twentysomething running the ins-and-outs of the joint with the infinite patience of Mother Theresa and a thorny soul buried with secrets. Her heart is invested in the pocket of each and every tenant shuffling through the facility, entombing herself in their trauma, becoming a fiber of their tragedy. Grace puts her physical and emotional well being at the bottom of the totem pole and it’s in part because of this that she is so great at dealing with this gang of lost boys…and girls. But her constant need to play the savior hints at something troubled lingering within her – an undead memory that haunts her every breath.

Grace sustains a borderline manipulative relationship with co-worker and underling, Mason (John Gallagher Jr.) who is both her devoted lover and emotional rock. On the flip side, Grace is as hot and cold as the object of a Katy Perry song. Theirs is a shaky boat of love with Grace always maintaining the upper hand, unwilling to let Mason ascend her tower of secrets. Their physical and emotional relationship have obviously parallels to their work positioning with Grace always on top, the solitary king of the castle flanked by skyhigh stone walls.

But to paint Grace as a domineering presence is to misrepresent her. In showing the turbulent nature of this part of her life, Cretton aims to illuminate how broken she is. Her throttling affections are a window into her soul. A key to the realization that doesn’t see herself as even deserving of love. Cretton plants little psychological clues like these throughout the film, prompting our curiosity for what scars these characters are hiding and how, if at all possible, they can be undone. The joy in the film is not the end of the journey but the road to it as Cretton handles his character’s soft-shelled insecurities both gently and honestly instead of putting it in autopilot and expecting the subject to bungle down tear-road.

One of the great rewards of watching the film is seeing how the jigsaw pieces composing Larson and other characters fit together. Unlike lesser films that utilize baggage as a means of emotional manipulation, every reveal, every turn, every batting off or acceptance of affection feels earned. It’s a difficult journey but one that lends credence to the cast’s standup acting ability andCretton‘s talent to skirt past manipulation into a much more rewarding realm of genuineness.

What remains the most fascinating portion of the film is Cretton’s willingness to go someplace dark and stir around in the pot. In doing so, a motif that rises to the top is the idea that people reveal themselves through their art. Grace draws, Marcus raps, Jayden writes stories. In these moments of expression, their deepest sense of self shines through perhaps showing more than they ever could in mere conversation. In creation, there is the capacity to destroy, to move beyond. Almost Nietzschian in effect, creation and destruction are symbiotic here. Two faces of one Janus, two sides of the same coin.

Another, more difficult, thing to take away is Cretton’s interpretation of self-inflicted pain. Many wounded souls hurt themselves not to inflict pain but to make the pain go away. This cathartic nature of destruction helps mask the real trauma stirring within them. The only way to move beyond this cycle of abuse though seems to be in a form of acceptance – a self-imposed yard sale of everything nasty hidden away. And so it is in Short Term 12. Only when we show the darkest parts of ourselves are we able to start moving towards the light.

A-

“Get in, get out” Getaway‘s tagline reads – an obvious parallel to the ideology that went on back in the writer’s room in this fart-and-hairspray fireball of a movie. Repping ADHD filmmaking at its most nauseous and nonchalant, Courtney Solomon (Dungeons and Dragons) directs Getaway like an 11-year old waving around a smart phone, clicking the camera on and off with no intent and no semblance of artistry. Each sequence leapfrogs between an unmeasured amount of angles, demonstrating Solomon’s lack of faith in his framing and making the experience of watching it akin to a scatter-shot montage lingering on for 90 minutes. It’s a grueling slog intent on leaving a wake of smashed-up vehicles – I counted 23 un-inventively totaled police cars, countless wrecked civilian automobiles and five exploding motorcycles – but not much else.

I’ve become an increasingly avid fan of Hawke’s – and found his work in this year’s Before Midnight to be the finest performance of 2013 to date – but he is saddled with some dialogue that’s so clunky that I feel I have to begrudge him simply for not outright refusing to say them at all. A late stage, “I know where she is!” (spoken to himself and no-one else) is the type of wrong-kind-of-laugh-inducing ringer that invites a level 5 face-palming. It’s just embarrassing for everyone involved and it’s nothing short of sad to see such a talented actor stoop to such lows.

I guess this brings us to what would be referred to here as the “plot”. Since about 95% of the film takes place inside a moving Shelby GT500, you can imagine that the plot lacking in both quantity and quality. Hawke is Brent Magna – a retired racecar driver, disgraced from the tracks for his recklessness and a tendency to destroy cars. On Christmas Day in Bulgaria (because where else would a disgraced racer want to spend the holidays?) his wife is nabbed by some faceless baddies and Magna is told that he’s got to drive a car into a bunch of stuff or they’ll kill her. Without a bat of an eye, Magna’s in the car, skidding his car into the midst of crowded parks, missing the mobs of holiday-cheerers by inches and thinking none the less of it.

The screenplay undercutting this vapid turd reads like a cheap, pointless and, worst of all, unasked for mashup of Saw and Fast and Furious. It involves a metric fuck-ton of driving, a heft of smashing, a dastardly villain who we only get to know by his (non-intimidating) voice, and a pinch of walking for good measure. Just kidding. We never once see Hawke move his legs, unless he’s a-shiftin’ with those racey feet of his. Like a road trip to hell with all the relatives we like least, we’re trapped inside the car for what quickly starts to seem like an eternity. The worst part of it all, Selena Gomez somehow snuck herself along for the ride.

But at least one consolation comes from this ten-car pileup of a film –  Gomez’s acting career can officially be swept under the rug once and for all. A young hacker known only as “The Kid”, Gomez is plainly more of a hack than a hacker. Name me one real life hacker whose idea of hacking means jamming their sausage fingers at an iPad with buttons like “Override” on the main screen and I’ll withdrawal my complaint. Perhaps hacking in the 21st century really is that easy but I seriously doubt it.

On the “hack” side of the equation though, there is overwhelming evidence that Gomez couldn’t act her way out of a bologna sandwich. There is not a single second (not the teensiest, tiniest crumb of time) where we believe that Gomez is capable of a tenth of the technological feats her character is supposedly carrying out. I could more easily believe that my friend’s dog Lucy could carve an ice swan than this curmudgeon do anything technical beyond tweeting a rave pic. Perhaps even more offensive are her completely unwarranted personality swings. Shifting on a dime scene-to-scene without any connection to past progress, Gomez can’t seem to keep her character straight. Never has it been so evident that a movie is not made front-to-back as Gomez seems incapable of keeping her arc linear without retreating into territory she’s already supposed to have moved beyond. 

Another character who gets the old writers block treatment is Jon Voight‘s strangely brewed criminal mastermind. With a nonspecific accent about as intimidating as a stale cupcake, and just about as flavorless, Voight’s grin is the only believable thing he’s selling here. Why? Because he’s laughing his way to the bank. His performance calls for so little that he may as well have been sitting in a sound booth and munching on bon-bons. That is the gist of his performance: sitting around, munching on bon-bons and grinning at the idiots handing him money to do it.

Like 70s exploitation without the sly, sarcastic sense of fun, Getaway leaves its trail of half-baked destruction but buries any sense of charmed wit along the way. Instead, this thriller on life support has its excitement pumped in at the rate of dial-up

internet. With only one long-shot in the entirety of the film worth mentioning at all, the result is so watered down that there’s hardly any taste left in it at all. Unfortunate proof that Solomon is a powder keg of a director, Getaway is little more than a generic waste of time and money. It may strike a chord for Shelby enthusiasts with a love-hate (but mostly hate) relationship with Bulgaria, but everyone else: do yourself a favor and steer clear.

D-

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