The Lie: Destin Daniel Cretton's SHORT TERM 12

 Brie Larson, John Gallagher, Jr., Kaitlyn Dever. Dir. Destin Daniel Cretton, Cinedigm, 2013

Writing about the HBO miniseries version of Richard Russo's EMPIRE FALLS, I opined that sometimes the distance between an almost-great film and really-great one can be as wide as the Milky Way. It pained me to say that. I badly wanted to declare EMPIRE FALLS as masterful as Robert Benton's Russo-adaptation, NOBODY'S FOOL, from 1994. I couldn't, though. It wasn't great, it was almost great, and that made all the difference.

I have to give that review again and it's twice as difficult, because Destin Daniel Cretton and his young cast, especially Brie Larson and Kaitlyn Dever get so much of SHORT TERM 12 exactly right. Even when the film staggers, as it does in its climax, it's not due to Larson and Dever but to Cretton, who veers inexplicably off into pat, trite, dishonest Hollywood bullshit to bring his story home.

Cretton wrote and directed a short of SHORT TERM 12 based on his experiences working in group homes for troubled teens. Most of the movie feels 100% authentic. I've lived in runaway shelters and group homes and the young actors playing the kids and the adults playing the staffers felt real. Kaitlyn Dever, as Jayden, a teenage girl who self-harms and remains aloof from the other residents, felt real, reminding me of my own self-destructive defiance and acting out, always finding the line and then testing it. Larson, as a survivor of abuse trying to help girls like Jayden while remaining professional, felt real.

Until Larson's Grace Howard, triggered by her boss's refusal to back her in accusing Jayden's dad of abusing her, snaps, breaks the boss's lamp, goes back to work, gets a baseball bat, drives to Dad's house - where she's already been - and lets herself in and is found standing over a sleeping Dad with said bat by Jayden, who talks Grace down. Grace confesses her own history of abuse, Jayden shows off her newest bruises, they both smash up Daddy's car with the bat, then Grace drops Jayden at the home's HQ so she can press charges against her father. In the following days, Grace repairs her troubled relationship, begins to open up in therapy, and life at the group home goes on.

I used to live in a group home for adults with substance abuse/mental illness problems. A guy moved in who had a history of passive/aggressive behavior to authority figures. I was introduced to him by my absurd title, House President. He spent the next month in my face everyday, always pushing, always testing, and one day I snapped and slapped the back of his head. 45 minutes later, I was homeless. 

In the world of group homes, halfway houses, sober living facilities et al, one line cannot be crossed and is always treated with zero tolerance. That line is physical violence. It is not ever tolerated. It cannot be. 

In any real-life treatment modality, Grace would have been fired the moment she smashed the lamp. She certainly would not have been permitted near the kids in the home again. 

From the moment Grace snatches the lamp, SHORT TERM 12 goes from being an authentic, powerful, cathartic ensemble drama to a pat, bullshit Hollywood fantasy and Cretton goes from fearless young screenwriter to liar. This is not your experience, Mr. Cretton. You never worked with colleagues who went to clients' homes, vandalized their property, threatened their lives, and experienced only positive consequences from doing so. 

You take a character who spends her career teaching kids not to act out in ways that will harm them and have her act out in exactly that way and show it improving her life. Sir, you and I know that is nothing but cheap Hollywood fantasy, a feelgood but false deus ex machina to give your story a happy ending.

I don't make these things personal, but Destin Daniel Cretton, you infuriate me. Your movie could have been, should have been, would have been perfect. All you had to do was not betray your characters and your premise by being honest. You chose to lie, and it's maddening.

Brie Larson gives a great performance. I even believe her when she breaks in the house with the bat. She sells it as consistent with her character, as does Dever. As does John Gallagher, Jr. as her co-worker/fiancee. As does the entire cast. They all bring it. Only to be betrayed.

SHORT TERM 12 won the top prizes at SXSW 2013, and made a number of year-end best-ofs, so I guess I'm in a distinct minority here, and I'm giving a bad review after posting I wouldn't do that anymore, so I'm a liar, too. Brie Larson deserves all the love she got from SHORT TERM 12. John Gallagher, Jr. still isn't a movie star, despite an Aughts/early teens filled with solid performances. Dever, longtime star of sitcom LAST MAN STANDING, gives a more intense reading of a similar character she played on Season 2 of JUSTIFIED. It sounds terrible to say she plays troubled girls well, but she played them well twice between 2012 & 2013.

I liked so much about this movie. I liked the characters even after the story goes off the rails. I don't like the lie it tells, though, and I cannot unsee it or say the rest of the greatness compensates. It tries, but it can't. It bugs me, too, that so many rewarded SHORT TERM 12. An insider ought not be the only one who can see the fundamental contradiction in Cretton's writing of Larson's character. He makes her not only a liar, but a rewarded liar.

Being a liar, himself, I suppose I ought to have seen that coming.