Plot
A 20-something supervising staff member of a foster care facility navigates the troubled waters of that world alongside her co-worker and longtime boyfriend.
Release Year: 2013
Rating: 7.9/10 (498 voted)
Director:Destin Cretton
Storyline
A 20-something supervising staff member of a foster care facility navigates the troubled waters of that world alongside her co-worker and longtime boyfriend.
Trivia:
Winner of the Audience Award at the 2013 SXSW Film Festival in the narrative feature category. See more »
User Review
Author:
Rating: 5/10
Destin Cretton's script about a foster care treatment facility was a
2010 Nichol Fellowship winner. It's an earnest, feel-good effort which
mainly focuses on its protagonist, Grace (Brie Larson), a 20 something
counselor at the facility. She's in charge of a group of dysfunctional
teenagers, who exhibit varying degrees of self-destructive behavior.
Grace herself is a victim of domestic abuse at the hands of her father,
who we soon learn will be released from a correctional facility after
serving time due to Grace's testimony against him. Grace is involved in
a relationship with another co-worker counselor, Mason (John Gallagher
Jr.), who was raised by warm, loving foster parents, in contrast to
Grace's damaged upbringing. Part of the plot involves Grace's internal
arc, as she struggles whether to have an abortion, following an
unexpected pregnancy. You can probably guess what she ultimately
decides to do about having the baby.
The bulk of 'Short Term 12' concerns Grace and Mason's struggle to help
the kids in their charge. The staff eschews a punitive approach when
dealing with the kids and are also bound by state laws that prohibit
them from bringing them back to the facility, if they leave the
grounds. Hence, there are a number of dramatic scenes where the
counselors engage in mad dashes to try and prevent one particularly
dysfunctional kid from exiting the perimeter.
Probably the greatest strength of the film is the depiction of the
meltdown of two particularly distressed teenagers: Marcus, an aspiring
rap artist and Jayden, a teenage girl, who Grace suspects is being
physically and sexually abused by her father. There are dark moments
for both of the teenagers: Marcus attempts suicide and Jayden is taken
home by her father on a weekend pass, where presumably she's being
abused. Naturally, there is the obligatory happy-ending for both of
them: Marcus eventually gets himself together and hooks up with a
former beauty who attended the facility (this story happens off-screen
and is related to us by Mason at film's end); and Jayden is saved after
Grace convinces her to testify to social service agency officials about
the abuse, at the hands of her father.
'Short Term 12' suffers most from the lack of an identifiable
antagonist. We never do get to meet either Grace of Jayden's father,
who are depicted as uncaring monsters. By fleshing either one of them
out (or both), and linking them organically to the plot, Mr. Cretton's
narrative, could have been way more dramatic and exciting. Instead,
Cretton loses sight of creating more complex characters by getting too
emotionally involved in his subject matter. Probably the weakest scene
is when Grace links her own crisis of the impending release of her
father from prison to Jayden's, breaking into her father's home, and
almost ending up bashing him over the head with a baseball bat.
Instead, Grace and Jayden take turns bashing in the window of the deep
asleep father's car. Yes, we understand that Cretton doesn't like
abusers, but he never introduces any of them to us as real human
beings.
Finally, it's nice to know that the caring efforts of Grace and Mason
pay off in the end, but how realistic is that? Often what happens is
that dysfunctional kids, those who have been oppressed by abusive
parents, become abusers themselves. Hence, the old dictum of the
oppressed becoming the oppressors, seems to be missing here. How about
a kid who Grace and Mason can't save, and is just plain evil? It's
another opportunity missed to introduce a credible antagonist.
As a first feature effort, Destin Cretton has created a fairly credible
look at what goes on in some foster care treatment facilities today.
With a little more seasoning, Mr. Cretton may break into the film
business, as a full-time director. He certainly knows how to direct his
actors and work with a cinematographer. Cretton needs to be a little
less sentimental and work at developing a full-fledged antagonist, when
he develops his sophomore effort.
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