It’s really hard for movies about singing competitions to be awful. There’s usually 1 or 2 songs that you can sing along with. There’s dancing, great costumes, killer stages, maybe a little sex? Ya know, good elements essential to a drama. Teen Spirit has a decent set up for a movie, but first time writer/director Max Minghella should take more lessons from Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher on what constitutes great storytelling.
Teen Spirit is The UK’s version of American Idol. Violet (Elle Fanning), a farmer’s daughter from a very small British Island, is your singer with a dream. After finding out she needs a guardian to join her (her single mom is against this), Violet recruits the local drunk in her karaoke bar, Vlad (Zlatko Buric). Vlad agrees to help, provided he can become Violet’s manager in hopes she can win the competition.
Minghella certainly has a decent set up to invest in Teen Spirit, cliched as it may be. His best setup is showing how much music is an escape for Violet. Her life, basically, sucks. Chores. Work. Selling things she loves so they can barely skate by. Music is her respite: she closes her eyes, and channels her feelings into the song. Vlad’s backstory is also mostly a win: he’s got musical talent in his family, so he knows more than he lets on drunkenly at the bar when Violet and him make the pact. There’s also a group of band members Violet befriends who join her in her ascent to stardom. Rebecca Hall also shows up as a producer offering Violet a contract before her actual performance on Teen Spirit. That’s various avenues/set ups for studying what sudden fame can do to someone sweet and simple who just wants to sing.
But the director wants to wrap up the movie in 30 minutes, climaxing with the big song. So we brush pass all of that rich set up for cheesy melodrama. Vlad has a past he’s scared to talk about, clearly affected by his success. Does he talk to Violet about this? Nope, just gets drunk and leaves the movie. The band members playing for Violet – that’s hilarious by the way: let’s get these amateur players to play for this girl in front of everyone in The UK. I’m sure they’ll be fine, HA! – are ostracized by Violet the night before the show, despite the fact that the band PAID their own way to be there, but seem to immediately forgive her on the eve of her show. Violet’s mom supports her daughter….from her little town on the Isle of Wight, completely abandoning her part in Violet’s story. Admittedly, the performance build up and execution is pretty dope, but by then that’s all the movie was leaning on, using the credits to gloss over ANOTHER cool potential plot point detailing the rise of Violet.
Teen Spirit wants to be taken seriously as a full well thought out movie. It is a decent song delivery service, to be fair. That choice though eschews the interesting material Max Minghella sets up in the first half of Teen Spirit. Finally, calling the competition Teen Spirit and not singing the Nirvana song? MAJOR letdown.