Last week, the Austin Film Society screened The Spectacular Now at the Marchesa Hall & Theatre followed by a Q&A with Director James Ponsoldt and I was lucky enough to attend.Based on the book by Tim Tharp, this film is about a troubled, hard-partying high school senior named Sutter that gets dumped by his girlfriend and starts hanging out with Aimee, a quiet, "nice girl" from school. He keeps telling himself that she is just his rebound, but eventually they fall in love and she changes the way he looks at his life and his other relationships.
While the relationship between Sutter and Aimee is the main focus of the story, it is really about a young man who is not happy and uses alcohol to block his pain. As someone who often projects a happier persona and uses movies and television, as opposed to alcohol, to distract me from my life, I definitely identified with Sutter. In one of my favorite scenes, Sutter is talking to his teacher and he says, "I don't see what's so great about being an adult. Are you happy?" and the teacher has no response. Sutter would rather live in the moment than have to think about his future. He pushes away the people that love him and care about him because he does not want them to see that he is miserable.
