by Kylefan atlanticwasborn
Powerful performances in a story that is simultaneously sweet and gut-wrenching. It also provided the most truly shocking moment I've seen in a movie in quite some time. I can only hope that these characters, which the film does make you love, have a far more spectacular future than their now.
Somehow, Kyle actually managed to make himself unattractive for this role, and it was all in his performance. He looked great in the pictures and the trailers, but once you watched the movie, he was actually able to inhabit this character and visibly convey the ugliness inside him. For a short period on screen, Kyle Chandler ceased to exist. Instead, we are left with a real dick of a man, Tommy Keely. Despicable, yet somehow pitiful too.
In Mary Elizabeth Winstead's brief appearance, we're able to see the damage he's done to her. While Sutter's mother wants to protect her son from his father's deadbeat brand of selfishness, his sister knows this is something Sutter has to witness for himself, lest he wants to end up the same way. When he sees him, the naive romanticizing of his father soon melts away when he sticks Sutter and Amy with his bar tab. This leads to more self-awareness from Sutter, which in turn causes something of a breakdown that results into that biggest "GASSSSPPPPP!!" moment I can remember having in a recent film. You'll know the moment if you see the film without reading the book (which is what I did).
After this, you see Miles Teller's character much less as a charming rogue, but a hard-living teenager with experiences no one at the tender age of 18 should have. There's even a shot of him in the shower where he has the visible scars to prove it (the same scars talked about as cute stories earlier in the film).
Shailene Woodley also deserves a lot of credit for bringing depth to this character, showing the dark shadows her own father's addiction cast over her life, and the scary possibility of her walking in that shadow.
It could have left you feeling hopeless, bleak. But instead, it left you feeling that while the now might feel spectacular for some, the real possibilities lie ahead.
('The Spectacular Now' is available at Amazon and iTunes.)
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