Introduction

This is a post that is a repurposing of an old-school Mini-Review Round-Up post. As stated here I am essentially done with running multi-film review posts. Each film deserves its own review. Therefore I will repost, and at times add to, old reviews periodically. Enjoy!

Standing Up

There’s a few oddities at work in Standing Up that work against it in a most unfortunate way. One is that there’s a nearly inappropriate tonal shift in the film. I only read half the book before putting it down so this isn’t fanboydom taking over, but aside from near the end and the inciting incident there is a lack of gravitas in the tale. It, in fact, gets siphoned off far too much. Another odd occurrence is that the further you get away from the protagonists the less natural, and grounded in reality their portrayals are. It can be argued that it’s a byproduct of having the narrator of the story be one of the kids, even still it’s a step too far and has the potential to take the audience out of the moment, as it did me. This is especially evident in what is intended to be a very dramatic moment in the film, one filled with tension as they are uncertain of the intent of one character. However, due to the writing, direction, and performance in the scene it falls flat.

It is difficult to come down against a film that has a firmly anti-bullying message and two great turns from the young leads Chandler Canterbury and Annalise Basso, but much of the production detracts rather than augments what they bring to the film. Furthermore, there’s not a build, or an overwhelmingly solid, memorable redemptive segment to the film; it’s all a bit too inconsistent overall.

5/10