Speech & Debate

This film tells the story of three teenagers in high school, who try to fit in and to find themselves in a conservative town where their voices are not heard by adults. They choose to form a speech and debate club to make their voices heard.

"Speech & Debate" is a good teenage film, that convincingly tells realistic teenage troubles. People can easily relate to the topics shown in the film, such as school censorship, bullying and general social awkwardness during teenage years. The girl, Diwata, seems not a nice person to start with, but she is in fact confident, assertive, supportive and caring. I like the three teenagers in the film, and I like the positivity on the story. I enjoyed it.

I really like coming of age movies so I googled for some and stumbled upon this one. The summary really won me over but I wanted to do some investigating before I proceeded to watch it. I got some mixed reviews and was skeptical. However, after watching it, I was blown away. I loved it. Although it wasn't 10/10 for me and I am no movie expert, the way the movie was made and the originality of the characters despite having clichéd labels was on-point. I felt a sense of relief when I finished watching it which is always awesome. So please go and watch it.

If you are coming to see a movie about debate then this is not a movie for you. The main focus of the film is about the three teens that make up the debate team and their struggles. I love how light hearted and funny this film is, and how the kids form a great bond with one another!

I see people who gave it a low rating because it isn't representative of real speech and debate clubs. That's true but the movie is about totally different themes. It's about adults refusing to acknowledge real issues and ignoring teens who are literally shouting to be heard. I think the movie did a great job at portraying this. I think the characters are fun and loveable as well.

Sometimes you are not able to get into a debate. For kids this is not something new. And when I say kids, I mean teens. While many do try to have fun during that period, that doesn't mean that some kids are more mature and have things that bother them, that they want to talk about. Now to some this may seem trivial and I reckon considering the latest mass shooting at a school, you could very well argue that point.

But it is not just about petty things, it is about the general state of not being able to listen to the person sitting next or opposite to you. When our main actor is trying to change something in his school, he's being shut down. He's being told to go and do something else. Like join an existing club. One that no one pays attention to anyway. So the solution is to keep one quiet. And while I see one other reviewer being angry about the title of the movie, be aware that there is more to this. And even if you feel the movie has missled you, that doesn't mean it has bad intentions or has bad acting in it. It is a slow burner and therefor hard to swallow at times, adding to the teen drama and missunderstandings. But it also has some merits to it, that I hope you can see and also hope they will be able to get you to think about other people too - because that is the message - Debate, but don't forget to listen