Based on his 2009 award-winning short film of the same name, Destin Daniel Cretton's Short Term 12 could have easily been full of the syrupy sentimentality of an after-school special. With its troubled but gifted teens and its equally affected, twentysomething group home workers, it had all the makings of a "My Hormones and Me" or a "Learning Not to Hurt" (Courtesy of ABC). However, Cretton and his cast skillfully bring an understated honesty to the film, allowing his characters' humanity and decency (and even life lessons) to arise in a beautifully organic way.
The film shares relatively equal time between the group home's residents and its employees. Most important of the latter being supervisor Grace (Brie Larson, 21 Jump Street, Scott Pilgrim) and Mason (John Gallagher Jr., The Newsroom), co-workers at Short Term 12 who are secretly seeing each other. The relationship is getting serious too, but Grace, who knows a little something about spending time in places like Short Term 12, continues to struggle with opening up to Mason. As the film begins, Mason, Grace and Jessica (Stephanie Beatriz, Brooklyn Nine-Nine) are welcoming new staff member Nate (Rami Malek). Mason is telling a hilarious and disgusting story about trying to follow a kid, Sammy, who had left the home while desperately needing to use the restroom. While he's doing so, a young boy runs screaming from one of the buildings and the supervisors have to catch and comfort him. There is also a new girl named Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever), a talented artist whose gruff exterior masks a live of abuse and a father who only wants her when he wants her; and an older boy named Marcus (Keith Stanfield) who is a burgeoning rapper with immense talent but who is also about to age out of the home.
Beyond this, the story is rather simple. There are some brief moments with some of the other kids in the home, including Luis, a loud-mouthed, super competitive type that often clashes with Marcus, Grace and Mason's deepening relationship, Grace's connection with Jayden, and Marcus coming to grips with the fact that he will soon be leaving Short Term 12. There isn't intricate plotting, suspenseful cliff-hangers or very much action (except an incredibly cathartic moment with mid-sized family vehicle). The camera-work is also straightforward, although the cinema verite style perfectly reflects what makes Short Term 12 such a fantastic film.
By standing back and observing, capturing the pain and the joy of his subjects, Cretton is able to fashion a world that is so convincingly realistic that it feels like you're watching a documentary. Every character is introduced and then slowly more and more details about them organically emerge into a deeply flawed, but incredibly beautiful portrait of a complex individual. These people do not feel like products of someone's imagination. They feel like real human beings with actual feelings and emotions. They feel like the real men and women all across the country that work in places like Short Term 12 every single day and that do everything is their power to provide some semblance of a normal life to the kids in their care. And they feel like the kids of parents who either didn't want them or couldn't take care of them, who are trying their damnedest to just figure things out.
This is also due, in no small part, to the universally outstanding performances of this stellar cast. As the enigmatic Grace, Brie Larson is kind of a revelation. She (with Cretton's direction) holds the audience at as much of an arm's length as the other characters in the film, never wanting to share her darkest secrets, not even to Mason. John Gallagher Jr., a Tony Award-winner for Duncan Sheik's Spring Awakening, also completely sells the lengthy monologues given to him while delicately portraying a guy that is goofy but also acutely sensitive to the needs of everyone around him. In addition, Dever is, as are all of the child actors, fantastic in the role given to her; and Keith Stanfield, in his acting debut as Marcus, has an indelible presence, delivering a reading of a hip-hop song he penned that is absolutely mesmerizing.
Not many films depict the lives of troubled kids, or the lives of the people that dedicate themselves to helping those kids, with the honesty and empathy that Short Term 12 does. Within an instant, Cretton pulls you into the lives of these characters and in just a few minutes more you feel like you've known them forever. It's possible that the film could have been longer. At 96 minutes, it can at times feel as if Cretton is rushing to his finale. But it's because he has created such an fascinating world filled with so many complex characters, that we want to spend more time here and learn as much as we can about these people. Because they've become a part of us. Their struggles, their defeats, and ultimately their victories all become our own. Though happiness often seems impossible to find for Grace, Mason, Marcus, Jayden, or any of us, there are glimmers of hope out there. Sometimes it's a new connection or the strengthening of an old one. Sometimes it's just being able to open up to someone about the pain you've been holding onto forever. Sometimes it's the promise of the future. And sometimes it's a small, unassuming film that turns out to be kind of a masterpiece.
9 out of 10
