Short Term 12 is exactly the type of experience you’re always hoping you’re going to get when you go into an indie drama where you’re not that familiar with any of the actors or the work of the director. It’s a revelation that spotlights new talents and hints at the potential of a handful of potentially great careers to come. It’s a promise that there’s still honest, affecting art being made in the movie industry. But most of all, it’s just a really enriching and entertaining way to spend an hour and a half of your time.
The filmmaker here is writer/director Destin Cretton, who has done a number of shorts before, and even a 2012 feature called I Am Not a Hipster, but who is not a name I was unfamiliar with before seeing this film. The star is Brie Larson, who I’ve seen in small roles in things like 21 Jump Street and The Spectacular Now, and who I’ve always thought showed potential, but who I’d never seen in a meaty, lead role up until this point. Thankfully, all of that has changed. After Short Term 12, Cretton’s is a name that I’ll be eagerly looking for in trade reports of new projects, and Larson’s name will be an instant selling point for any project she gets attached to. The work they do here is just that good.
The story we’re told is set at a foster care facility for troubled youths who have fallen through the cracks of the system and have nowhere else to go. The place is called Short Term 12, and it exists somewhere between a juvenile detention center and a mental health facility, but without the resources of either. It’s just a temporary place for young people to stay so the government can check off a box saying that they’re being kept somewhere. Larson plays Grace, the defacto leader of the small group of counselors who watch over the place and the residents. She’s tough but compassionate, competent and motivated, and she does a great job taking care of the kids in her care. Inside she’s something of a wreck though, as she’s got her own scars from the past that haven’t quite healed, and some unresolved issues that are about to come bubbling to the surface and disrupt the happy new life she’s made for herself. Short Term 12 is largely a series of subplots that introduce us to the young people in her care, let us in on what they’ve been through in the past, and detail the changes they experience while they’re living in this facility—but mostly it’s the story of Grace, and how all of these individual little dramas weave together to tell us more about who she is as a person.
As you’d imagine from a movie with a small budget and a story that does little more than introduce us to a cast of characters who are trying to survive their lives, Short Term 12 lives and dies on its writing and its performances. There isn’t any flashy filmmaking here, or any big twists to the story, but the film is still able to thoroughly succeed as an affecting work because Cretton’s script is a gem and all of the young actors who make up the cast are talented to the person. For such a dramatic movie that seems to deal with a different issue involving trauma and abuse every other minute, Short Term 12 has a really light touch. Its plot develops organically, all of the character’s reactions to their situations ring true, and there isn’t a hint of melodrama in what proves to be a really weepy movie regardless. And it’s funny too. That’s not to say that it’s a dramedy or something—this is strictly a heavy drama—but there still manages to be constant laughter just because the characters are all smart, likable people played by charismatic, likable actors.
Structurally, the script is pretty amazing. Seeing as we’re being introduced to so many characters who all have their own little mini-dramas to play out, you’d think the film would play as a series of vignettes, or perhaps a compilation piece, but Larson’s Grace character works as enough of a binding element to all of the subplots, and they each act as enough of a means for us to learn more about her character that nothing plays as being inessential and everything we’re given ends up feeling like a part of a coherent whole. The story unravels itself slowly and is confident enough in our intelligence to not hold our hands and spell everything out for us, so it proves to be a real joy to follow. You never feel like you’re at the mercy of a plot, and you never feel like you’re going to be bogged down by all of the abuse and mental illness talk. Short Term 12 is like medicine that makes you feel better, but still tastes so good that it doesn’t need any added sugar to go down smooth. It’s the rare case of a film that’s substantial without becoming homework.
Really, the big reason to see the movie is to check out Larson’s performance as the lead though. This is a movie that’s full of good performances from young actors—like John Gallagher Jr. as her unassuming fiancé, Keith Stanfield as an angry young man named Marcus, and Kaitlyn Dever as an angry young woman named Jayden—but it’s Larson’s performance that you’ll walk out of the theater buzzing about and feeling like you’re on a high from. She’s got a lot of weight to shoulder here, and she does so effortlessly. She’s got a lot of dramatic material to deliver, and she absolutely kills you with her readings. And the whole time all of this is happening she remains so likable that you just want to pinch her cheeks and bring her home to keep with you forever. If she ever gets a big part in a film that garners some mainstream exposure, she’ll certainly have what it takes to become a huge star from the opportunity.
Probably the most notable thing about Short Term 12 is that it has a scene where a character performs a rap that he’s written, and it somehow doesn’t end up being embarrassing though. Any time there’s about to be rapping in a movie, you can’t help but instinctively cringe. Here there’s no need, because when the Marcus character performs some lyrics he’s written about the abuse he’s gone through and the anger he feels at never having had the chance at a normal life, not only are the lyrics and delivery perfectly acceptable for the moment in time the scene is trying to create, the conviction of Stanfield’s performance becomes so powerful that it even makes your eyes get a little dusty. It’s a legitimately emotional moment in a film that’s full of them. Short Term 12 is bound to show up on a million top ten lists come the end of the year, so definitely check it out before then if you get a chance.
