FILM REVIEW: The Myth of the American Sleepover

There’s a pivotal moment in The Myth of the American Sleepover that’s as close to perfection as you can hope for in a movie. Maggie (played by the young and talented Claire Soma), a girl about to start her freshmen year of high school, sits in a bathing suit flirting with a boy three years her senior. They’re talking life, sitting on opposite sides of the chasm between childhood and being teenager. It’s a beautifully executed scene, and goes a long way in saying what the film is really “about.” Where the twilight of youth and the start of adulthood come together, pause, and reflect on the greener grass of either side. At the end of the day (in this case, literally), it’s a film about that time when you’re a kid, but not quite. A teenager, almost; and how we’ll all be grown-up way, way too soon.

The Myth of The American Sleepover (debuting at New York’s Angelika Theater today) is the feature film debut of David Robert Mitchell. Michigan raised, he studied film in Florida before heading for the big time in Los Angeles. And despite relocating to the land of disillusionment, the film he’s shot is all about the wonderment of growing up in small town America. A love song to suburban Michigan youth from it’s first breath to it’s last.

The movie first began garnering attention at SXSW last year, where it was well received and won the prize for Best Ensemble Cast. Thanks to the momentum out of Austin, it went on to become one of only a handful of American films to show at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival . . . and deservedly so. A refreshingly earnest (and young!) ensemble cast consistently turns out the sort of minor-miracle moments that any veteran director would be happy to squeeze just one of into their films. Through a combination of lovely cinematography (from James Laxton, who also shot last year’s fantastic Medicine for Melancholy for The Daily Show’s Wyatt Cenac) and a great ear for honest dialogue, Mitchell finds about a hundred of them.

The Myth of the American Sleepover follows the story of a group of Michigan high schoolers (and three memorable collegians) through the last night out of summer. Incoming freshman and kids just moved from out of town alike, each of the cast are searching for who they’ll be in the coming year. Trying on new personality traits. Smoking and drinking. Chasing girls (or boys). Fighting. Making new friends. The storylines crisscross and weave and intersect, each of them coming to a satisfying climax the final morning of summer.

The film has been widely compared to Richard Linklater’s cult-classic Dazed & Confused, which is fair, but it’s far from a one-to-one comparison. Where Dazed is a film that thrives on boisterous characters and explosive moments of comedy (looking at you Matthew McConaughey), Sleepover hews closer to the work of Mumblecore directors like the Duplass brothers & Andrew Bujlaski, or even Sophia Coppola. Soft, understated, delicate performances and moments.

Mithcell realizes that because we’ve all lived through this weird period of growing up, catching these tiny moments in a bottle is enough to strike a chord. And that’s what makes it so great. He knows that the young audience he’s hoping to find is taking longer and longer to reach full-blown grown-up-dom. The Myth of the American Sleepover might be just that, but on the last day of summer, it sure doesn’t feel like it.

Mat Newman lives & writes in Brooklyn. Follow him on twitter @mtnewman or check out his website.