Super Late Film Review: The Spectacular Now

Miles Teller is doing really well. I’m not even trying to be smart. He’s doing really, really well. So is Shailene Woodley for that matter too. They’re both appearing in one of my most anticipated films of 2015, plus they’re just really good actors. So, when I decided to watch The Spectacular Now I expected good. Great even. What I got was a film that was out of this world AMAZING. The Spectacular Now was honest, intelligent and had me forgetting that I was watching two of the biggest young adult stars on the planet.

The film centres on party hard, verging on alcoholic high-school student Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) who’s life seems to be going pretty smoothly until his girlfriend, Cassidy (Brie Larson) dumps him. After a night of heavy drinking, Sutter is woken up by Amy Finicky (Shailene Woodley) as she goes through her paper rounds. The two quickly become good friends and then involved with each other. However, things start to slip as Sutter keeps up his no-plans hedonistic ways, and his seemingly careless façade starts to slip. After a serious accident, Sutter has to come to terms with who he is, who he wants to be and who means the most to him.

Directed by James Ponsoldt, each scene is nearly flawless. Realistic to a fault, the plot never sounded campy, or melodramatic and that’s very much due to the excellent talent displayed by each of the cast members. Both Teller and Woodley’s characters could have become caricatures of American Teen Angst but instead they played their characters true to life, and beautifully. I’d like to give a shout out to Kaitlyn Dever, who’s time on the screen was brief but who’s character, Krystal, was the best in-your-face best friend that I’ve seen in a long time. Perfectly annoying and maternally protective without descending into stereotyping (ugh).

Although there were some points where I was said to myself ‘hmm’, overall the film was great. If you haven’t seen it, I would highly suggest you borrow it out, or buy it. It’s definitely a film I would watch again if I could and I’m very much looking forward to watching Insurgent this weekend (review coming out soon). 

9/10

Get the Spectacular Now from Amazon: The Spectacular Now