Review of The Spectacular Now (2013) by Brandon W — 14 Jan 2016

The Spectacular Now is directed by James Ponsoldt and it stars Miles Teller in a romantic movie where it's his last year in high school, got dumped by his girlfriend, and start drinking cold drinks until he passes out.

When the next day starts, a girl name Aimee, played by Shailene Woodley, found him and then they start helping each other and create a big friendship with each other. I actually seen this a few years ago and remember really enjoying it by surprise, but I don't know how I found out about the movie as I wasn't familiar with the director, the writers, or even the actors, which I only saw Miles Teller in only the remake of Footloose.

Even though I have no idea how I found it, I'm still glad that I did because this is a fantastic movie. Miles Teller is a great actor in this and definitely holds up as a main character. Even though I first saw Shailene Woodley in The Descendants, I was not really old enough to understand why it was a good movie, and I only remember George Clooney being in that movie, no one else, but in this when I got older, she's fantastic in this and was definitely one of the best parts of the film which got me to notice her as she's one of the moments that stand out from this film.

Miles and Shailene's chemistry was so good, and so realistic, that it honestly was kind of reminding me of the Before Trilogy, which is a high praise to say, at least for me that is. The dialogue was very well written and it honestly felt, well, human to me.

The stuff that they say are very relatable and we do act like these type of people in high school, which made me see that I wasn't looking at characters talking to each other like from a play, I felt like I was actually looking at human people having a legitimate conversation that people would have in real life.

It does a good job at showing that love doesn't always have to come from just great looks, it comes from a personality that is not self-absorbed, actually cares about people, and is very true to themselves and not act like a faker.

The supporting cast are good too, whether it was from Jennifer Jason Leigh, Brie Larson, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and even some big roles who played small characters like Bob Odenkirk and Kyle Chandler.

The movie tries to not go through the cliches routes which is rare to see that nowadays, and when it sort of does go to the direction that you know where it goes, it was still done very well and felt somewhat refreshingly different, and not in a Hollywood way.

It has a slow pace which would probably turn off some viewers, but I was never bored because I was still interested in the characters, the writing, and where it was going also. The Spectacular Now is honestly in my opinion, in a high par with The Perks of Being a Wallflower, one of my favorite films, and thanks to this film, it got me excited for The Fault of Our Stars and was very glad to see that the writers were involved in it, and Shailene Woodley being a main character, which resulted in her being wildly famous.