Director: Max Minghella
Cast: Elle Fanning, Agnieszka Grochowska, Archie Madekwe, Zlatko Buric, Millie Brady, Vivian Oparah
Rating: 12A
Running Time: 93 mins
Release Date: 26/07/2019
Early on in Max Minghella‘s brand-new musical fairy tale TEEN SPIRIT, the soundtrack rings out to the tune of the instrumental to the Oscar-winning 1983 song, WHAT A FEELING.
Yep – nearly twenty years after the likes of Will Young and Gareth Gates belted out songs in front of the POP IDOL judges, the formula remains predictably welcoming to both the cinema and television screen.
Violet (Elle Fanning) is a teenager of Polish origin who lives on the Isle Of Wight on a farm with her mother, Maria (Agnieszka Grochowska). She happily sings in a local bar and is applauded after one performance by grouchy old regular Vlad (Zlatko Buric), who is impressed with her ability to sing and offers her a lift home. Vlad reveals he is a former Opera singer and agrees to help her develop as a singer.
Sure enough, an advert for a local singing contest to a TV show called TEEN SPIRIT intrigues Violet, so she auditions like so many before her, but due to her being underage uses Vlad to secure a spot. Can she do it? Will she do it..?
Does the sun rise? Does it rain when the clouds go grey? You can pretty much anticipate and predict how the film is going to go, but in the spirit and tradition of Baz Luhrmann’s STRICTLY BALLROOM (1992) which rose above its predictability to become a much-loved 1990s favourite, TEEN SPIRIT is certainly going to have the potential to please the target audience, who will always love a good fairy tale.
It’s all here and on the back of Bradley Cooper‘s fourth version of A STAR IS BORN (who would have predicted that?) it is clearly going to give fans of the likes of BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT and THE X-FACTOR another quick but effective fix. Fans of PITCH PERFECT and the aforementioned FLASHDANCE will know what they are getting into.
Like Julia Roberts in PRETTY WOMAN, Elle Fanning is the centrepiece of the film and gives a vibrant and spirited performance, coupled with a great singing voice.
Max Minghella (who wrote the script and also co-executive produces the film with Jamie Bell (and TEEN SPIRIT shares so much with his film acting debut BILLY ELLIOT) will certainly shine bright as a director in the future like his late father Anthony, who won an Oscar back in 1997 for THE ENGLISH PATIENT.
Whatever the future for the film, this TEEN SPIRIT smells sweet as candy.
