Perfect High

This is not super deep or nuanced commentary on substance abuse--this is the classic "fall of the all-star athlete" with contemporary dress and social media in the background. It does highlight the situation of teen athletes getting on the painkillers after sports injuries, but this movie was clearly made for entertainment value and not to preach any message deeper than "careful with those Vicodin and never do heroin."

I see some reviewers seem to report strong emotional resonance from the movie.. I just didn't feel that, and it's not because I haven't lost any friends to drugs. The film's exploration of fake friends, teen partying, parents difficulty relating or understanding etc. Are all well executed, but again this is definitely a movie for TV fun--one that you can apparently construe some personal meaning from, too! I just liked it as a Lifetime movie.

At Lakewood High, lead dance troupe member Amanda (Bella Thorne) is part of the selfie obsessed generation. She dislocates her knee and is prescribed hydrocodone. Riley wants a friendly handout. She starts going out with Riley's brother Carson and soon she's pulled into Riley's drug world. She spirals out of control.

Bella Thorne works better as the mean girl. This is a scared-straight afterschool special movie of the week. It hits most of the standard drug tropes. Some are cheesier than others. It's not particularly good nor bad. I do appreciate the misdiagnosis by her mother as an eating disorder but by the end, she's a little slow. This is not breaking any new grounds. It travels very familiar roads.

If I were in charge, it would be mandatory that every middle schooler would have to watch this. Bella Thorne actually gave the best performance of her career. It's so realistic & it makes you a little sick to your stomach. It should. People that wrote in with their reviews who say that it's melodramatic and it's been done before, they probably have never had any kind of crisis in their family. This movie nails it on the head. These four teenagers is ARE all good kids and they all experience it together, so nobody had any kind of reasoning. I encourage you to make your kids sit down and watch this, as uncomfortable as it may be.

A popular female high school teenager Amanda Walker (Bella Thorne) who thrives on posting her cheerleader dance moves on social media platforms dislocates her knee which leads her into a fast paced downward spiral of first taking pain medication, to hard drugs. As a teenager girls/boys all make a decision whether to become leaders or followers. In this case the once popular cheerleader Amanda becomes a follower to a more popular girl who leads her into sex, drugs and alcohol.

Of course her parents are oblivious to the warning signs that Amanda displays and they chalk her mood swings and periodic illnesses up to her cheerleading accident and a more recent eating disorder.

Further along going into a downward spiral Amanda befriends a few other drug abusers and she comes face to face with a life or death situation with her new found friend.

Of course this Lifetime movie is attempting to teach teenagers what can happen rather quickly if you get mixed up with the wrong crowd of friends, drink alcohol and take unknown drugs, but I thought they glorified the process as Amanda loses her virginity and enjoyed being high. In my humble view this Lifetime movie failed miserable and sent the reverse message that drugs and sex can be glamorous and there will always be someone there to save you before you go too far overboard with the drugs and/or alcohol. As for the sex? Lifetime seems to chalk that up to just being a normal teenager. Both sad and wrong again.

Too bad Lifetime missed the opportunity to take drug abuse, alcohol abuse and free sex more seriously then they did. Miss Thorne only helped glamorize these issues. There will certainly be no Emmy's for this tripe.

I give it a 3 out of 10 IMDB rating.

I had this on in the background while going about my day, but something in the dialogue made me pay closer attention. This is NOT your everyday teen fluff piece. It's dark and gritty and real. It slowly builds the story of opiate addiction from innocently getting hooked on oxy's after a painful injury, to the partying that new addicts enjoy, to the resulting reality of getting really sick from withdrawal and the search for ever stronger drugs leading to heroin use and heroin addiction. I don't want to give away anything more but if you happen to see this in your tv listings, you should definitely watch it.