George, a lonely and fatalistic teen who has made it all the way to his senior year without ever having done a real day of work, is befriended by Sally, a popular but complicated girl who re... Read allGeorge, a lonely and fatalistic teen who has made it all the way to his senior year without ever having done a real day of work, is befriended by Sally, a popular but complicated girl who recognizes in him a kindred spirit.George, a lonely and fatalistic teen who has made it all the way to his senior year without ever having done a real day of work, is befriended by Sally, a popular but complicated girl who recognizes in him a kindred spirit.
- Awards
- 1 win & 2 nominations total
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Here is a short summary of the movie George played by Freddie Highmore, is a senior in high school who narrates throughout the movie, is does not do his homework or listen in class instead he draws sketches and doodles. After a few days George meets this girl Sally played by Emma Roberts who becomes friends with him and falls in love with him, well George doesn't know what to feel and ends up losing her, he get a last chance to complete all his work for a whole yearn in order to graduate high school given to him by his principal. George lives with his mom and stepdad who lost his job and is leaving them. Towards the end of the movie George has to complete an art project, one project of the whole year in order to graduate and ends up painting an awesome portrait.
Great artistic drama with some comedy scenes that will make you laugh, because they remind you of when you were young and in school. Great cast. Especially Emma Roberts and Freddie Highmore, the two main people in the film.
I recommend this movie for people who love art, who likes romantic/drama films, and everyone else.
I bummed it did not make its way to theaters and got only a release at the Sundance Film Festival and on DVD and bluray. This movie could of done very well at the box office.
I give it 7 out of 10 stars, for its great cast, great plot and great story.
Set in New York City at a prep high school you have an odd and lonely out of place boy George(Freddie Highmore) who's searching for social acceptance while he slacks and struggles with his grades. Also his mother Vivian(Rita Wilson) is having problems of her own with George's stepfather and money woes are painful. It's upon meeting a girl that George has loved from a distance that gives him hope. Enter Sally(good performance from Emma Roberts)a southern girl who's moved north with her sexy and extroverted mother Charlotte(Elizabeth Reaser). And as typical the ups and downs of meeting, partying, and hanging out come and go and the typical hormones rage also. In the end George learns both a discovery of art and love. Overall nothing great it's somewhat predictable still it's theme and message is memorable and true this film is an all right watch.
It's beautifully shot and edited, and we see many fine performances. I found Emma Roberts particularly appealing, as she has a dour, come-hither look in her dark eyes about 95% of the time. What Ingrid Bergman could achieve by looking down, Roberts does by looking almost right at us.
Freddie Highmore looks and feels authentic. His character has a lot of choices to make, many of which go against all common sense. But although he drives us crazy, he's intriguing and we want to know what's to happen to him.
Mid-movie, the characters are hit with several crises, and it gets interesting as we wonder how they'll resolve them. When resolution strikes, though, it's so conventional that it's disappointing. The expected is unexpected.
Yup, it has indie-feel and Sundance all over it. But I was hoping for a big surprise at the end from these flawed but good people; instead, they seemed to abandon what they had stood for. And what may have qualified as a surprise involving Roberts was simply unbelievable and too convenient to accept. Though I was happy for them, a simple, happy ending didn't feel right with these non-simple characters.
But then, maybe, that was the point.
Freddy Highmore and Emma Roberts play high school students in the city, from different from different social classes even though they both go to an expensive private school. George (Highmore) also happens to be a loner/misfit who has a bad case of that teen angst we all can recognize: everything's pointless, why bother doing homework, we're all going to die anyway, yadda yadda. He's got all his justifications figured out, and then one day he develops a hard crush on Sally (Roberts), and suddenly sees that there may be a point to things after all. But of course there are personal problems and home life to drive a wedge between their budding maybe/sorta romance, including George's inability to express his feelings in any way except through his art. So the stereotype of the misunderstood loner/misfit is carried through quite predictably, exactly as we have all seen it in two dozen other films about teenagers.
Highmore and Roberts are good-looking and competent actors, judging by what I've seen of their work elsewhere. Here, however, they fizzle. There is simply no chemistry between their characters. Roberts may be able to get by on her stunning good looks, but lip-twisting and -twitching do not a convincing actress make; she merely sleepwalks through her lines. We the audience are never shown what it is about her (other than striking eyes) which attracts George. George does have a few moments of good dialog which could have been gold in the hands of a motivated actor, but the constant wooden expressions on his face undermine them; he is blank even when tears are running down his cheeks. How the heck are we supposed to care about his personal crisis? I will say in its favor that TAOGB does have some standout minor characters; the adults in George's life which, for the most part, are well-acted. I especially liked his art teacher's over-the-top intensity. George's mom is also wonderfully cast for the role of a tired woman just trying to hold her family together. And what's up with Alicia Silverstone as a frumpy schoolmarm?!?..but it works, oddly enough.
So in short, TAOGB wasn't a disaster, but I just can't see anybody citing it for outstanding, well, *anything* in the years to come.
Yeah buddy, you are so cool that you do not know what cosine is, we get it.
Did you know
- TriviaIn the first scene, the camera passes by Tom's Restaurant, the same restaurant featured in Seinfeld (1989), aka Monk's.
- Quotes
George Zinavoy: I read a quote once when I was a kid "We live alone, We die alone. Everything else is just an illusion." it used to keep me up at night.
- Alternate versionsThe UK release was cut, this film was originally seen for advice in an unfinished version. The BBFC advised the distributor the film was likely to receive a 15 classification but that the requested 12A classification could be obtained by reducing the number of uses of strong language. When the finished version of the film was submitted for classification, the number of uses of strong language had been reduced from five to one. Accordingly, the film was classified 12A.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Ebert Presents: At the Movies: Episode #1.22 (2011)
- SoundtracksWe Will Become Silhouettes
Written by Benjamin Gibbard, James Tamborello aka The Postal Service
Performed by The Shins
Courtesy of Sub Pop Records
Details
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $1,430,241
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $679,160
- Jun 19, 2011
- Gross worldwide
- $1,892,130