Film Review: Teen Spirit Rises In Sound And Statement

On paper, Teen Spirit seems like the typical teen film about the young girl caught up by rising fame. Yet, Max Minghella’s directorial debut shows that, for many, fame is an escape from the anonymity of poverty. When you live broke, you feel apart of an invisible mass that could suffocate you ,and Elle Fanning’s performance as Violet is both heartbreaking and exciting.

From the beginning, Teen Spirit sets up how screwed Violet feels by life. She is 16, and working nights and weekends to help her mom barely maintain finances for their home. She does not own too many clothes or even personal items, which makes her life be filled with the frustrations of being an adult while, still, being a kid. She would love to go to parties and dress up, and feel like the few things she owns will not be sold because small pleasures, like an ipod, are not financially sound. In essence, when you are poor, fun is a guilty pleasure, but, when you are a teen, fun is your only goal. Hence, as an audience, you become intrigued by the quiet, meek girl with a voice that feels like her ticket out.

Again, Teen Spirit will sound like a “typical rags to riches” tale, but Minghella’s script goes for the nuances of living a life you do not want, especially as a young person. Thus, there are several, quiet moments of dreaming and the common “dancing in my room with a microphone hairbrush” scene, but inescapability comes at the core of both Violet and Zlatko Buric’s Vlad; the latter feeling like the opera version of Hagrid. Vlad is funny, sweet, and broken; unable to grasp a past that felt so grand compared to his current present. He understands Violet’s desperation to escape her world, and her sincere assessment that the entertainment industry may be the only way. Her mother, Agnieszka Grochowska’s Marla, will not be sending her off to be a doctor or lawyer; she cannot afford it.

Minghella smartly focuses on the very beginnings of Violet’s career and self-discovery of her worth. With Vlad in toe, she realizes she has something special, and the Interscope backed soundtrack makes Elle Fanning sound like the buoyant baby of Sigrid and Robyn. Stylistically, she encompasses today’s pop music scene so perfectly, I will 100% back her music career (lol!). Yet, her journey also symbolizes the undercutting, visceral nature of the music industry that stems from the fact that a lot of people, particularly poor, see becoming an entertainer as their only way out of poverty. Her fellow competitors see her as a threat because they, too, share the same dream of escape and hopes to support a struggling family. This subtle tragedy allows Teen Spirit to distinguish itself as a vibrant, but pensive observance of fame being a literal escape. Teen Spirit Comes Out In Theaters On April 4.