The Spectacular Now

THE SPECTACULAR NOW   ***

James Ponsoldt

2013

IDEA:  Sutter Keely, a popular, self-possessed high school senior with a drinking problem, falls in love with Aimee Finecky, a good-girl bookworm. Through each other, they will deal with difficult pasts and the precarious present.

BLURB:  The Spectacular Now features two warm, naturalistic performances from leads Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, who share a remarkably easygoing chemistry that carries the bulk of an understated – if somewhat dry – film. Their characters make up a relationship that always feels rooted in real teenage provinces: discomfort with school and family, reluctance towards accepting love, and most pointedly, an apprehension for the future. Ponsoldt rather refreshingly favors quiet moments of conversation over pop music montages, minor emotional beats over soaring epiphanies. Best of all, he nails the feeling of what it’s like to be a young person with a dubious grasp on time, realizing that the mantra of “living in the now” is merely a temporary respite from the knowledge that each “now” is another step into a future being constantly redefined.