MovieChat Forums > Daydream Nation (2010) Discussion > I wanted to like this movie

I wanted to like this movie

posted 11 years ago by bbonacci-1
6 replies | jump to latest

There were a lot of things I loved about this movie including the filming and the soundtrack. The writing and character arcs however were just laughable. Watch the first scenes with the teacher and then think about the blubbering fool he turns into. The main character starts out as a sassy self-assured, too old for her peers young woman, who then characteristically tells off the shallow little classmate in the bathroom. In the next scene she is crying because someone wrote something on the bathroom wall. Her best off the wall moment though was when she flipped out at the teacher and broke up with him because he portrayed her as ethereal in his book. "All we do is flirt and have sex, so of course you think I am perfect".....And that is his fault? Also, she says to him "Relax, I am seducing you" and he seems reassured by that. How about "IT DOESN"T MATTER HONEY, I am still your teacher and you are under 18".
And this is the first time I have ever seen someone repeat a "speech" (if you will) verbatim in two places in a movie, and now I know why. I was cringing while she was repeating her declaration, word for word, to Thurston about the other girls in the school. The confrontations at the door with her father and Thurston just left me wondering which one of them was more inappropriate and disjointed.
And finally (only because I am already spending too much time on this), the writer should look up the word "humiliated" I am pretty sure SOMEONE ELSE needs to be aware of something for a person to be humiliated about anything. How can you be humiliated when someone you are seeing secretly AND illegally, breaks up with you?????

[–] UrbanFarmboy 11 years ago

Sadly, pretty accurate. I just finished watching it, and this is the critique I gave some friends:

"Watching Daydream Nation. Half way through. I went in with high expectations, but... No offense if this is your cup of tea, but it just kind of seems like lazy writing to me. Theres so much expositional dialogue. There's no real subtlety or subtext, everything is just kind of out there. It doesn't seem to be an artistic choice and if it is... It certainly doesn't seem like it's working out in the best interest of the story. And there's nothing to figure out. Everything is being delivered to me. Sad day."

Followed by:

"It perked up a little towards the end, but not by nearly enough. If you want to watch an indi with teen sex, drug use, and mentally imbalanced individuals on the verge of suicide, watch The Wackness instead! It's way more interesting, less predictable, and it stars Sir Ben Kingsley!"

I love Kat Dennings! But this movie was just pretty disappointing.

[–] spurpop-686-660440 11 years ago

I agree with basically everything you said. This was one big, sloppy mess of a movie. I'm confused as to why you said "now I know why" because I don't understand why she repeated that little speech verbatim but it really bothered me too.

I disagree with your last point about the word "humiliated," because that seemed like a pretty humiliating situation to me. He is the teacher so he feels like he should have the power in the relationship yet this teenage girl broke up with HIM and then he has to go on acting like everything is normal - EMBARRASSING!

[–] PennyPark 11 years ago

Me too. I was tickled by the title and the fact that there is actually a character named Thurston (though no Kim, sadly), but the charm only lasted for about 20 minutes. Pity. There was just a host of things that were narratively irrelevant: the murdered exotic dancer, Dad's incipient cancer, Thurston's sister's friendship, the industrial fire outside of town, the serial killer, the rocks thrown at Barry's house, and the rocks thrown at Caroline's car when she had sex with Thurston the first time. So many other things were poorly established. Ugh. I started to list them but it would take too long and I'm starting to feel too apathetic about it to continue. I wish the writer had rewritten this - there's a decent story in there somewhere. I would have liked to have seen it.

§Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar

[–] ChocolateButt 11 years ago

I think the point of the slut-shaming speech, followed by her crying was to show that she is still a kid, capable of being hurt. Her repeating it later was to show that although she believed it, she was still parroting ideas the way teenagers do when they want to seem smart and different...

The teacher was always a creep. Just good at hiding it.

Expiration dates are mere suggestions! Like late fees and traffic lights.

[–] istara 10 years ago

Agreed totally - her brash worldliness was at least partly a veneer.

The teacher wasn't so much a creep as a man-child. An idiot.

[–] Frantastic_Miss_Fox 8 years ago

Agreed! I thought those moments made her a better character. They showed her vulnerability and the fact that she is only human. People in real life repeat themselves to other people, especially people that like to show themselves as being smarter than those around them. Plus, her crying in the bathroom when seeing that writing about her showed that she was still capable of getting upset. She just put on a tough front.