Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Speak (2003) PG13 - 3½ Stars

I bought this as a whim to make up the 4 for $20.00 special at Blockbuster. It was great to find out I now own a pretty good movie. Great story line and Kristen Stewart gives a genuine performance. I fear there are a lot more teens out there than we may realize, suffering from the same affliction possibly camouflaging it a different way.

Melina Sordino (Kristen Stewart) is about to enter high school as a bright focused student with a decent relationship with her family and good attitude on life. At a party before school starts, Melina is violently raped by a jock from school. Rather than telling anyone about what happened, she instead retreats into a silent world, pushing her mother (Elizabeth Perkins) and father (D.B. Sweeney) away. Her mother is so wrapped up in her own problems, she barely realises her daughters estrangement. As she enters high school, she has become an outcast with no friends and her grades begin to suffer. This once positive young girl is now rejecting everything that once made her happy. Even when she tries to tell her best friend (Hallee Hirsh), who is now dating the jock, she thinks she's making it up for attention. But one art teacher is about to change her life.

Mr. Freeman (Steve Zahn) encourages Melina's silence to be expressed in the form of art. He gives her an assignment to draw a tree, that produces some very deep dark effects. Rather than trying to verbally dig out the trenches that block Melina from feeling, he sets out to help her find herself from within by expression of the tree.

Speak Film Inc.
Director: Jessica Sharzer
Writers: Annie Young Frisbie, Jessica Sharzer
Producers: Fred Berner, Matthew Myers
I viewed 12/08

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