Film one out of the way: Terri (2011)
I thoroughly enjoyed this film throughout. The performances, especially that of lead Jacob Wysocki, were unbelievable. He was so convincing as the self-less, weight troubled teen. To the point where it made me think a lot about my high school days, but I’ll get to that. It’s so great to see John C Reilly in another serious (ish) role, I feel he will constantly be under-appreciated as an actor if he continues to take the roles he seems to. He is definitely a great person to cast in any role similar to the one he plays in this film. A person, who is troubled with his own issues, looking to help all the people he can. Great. I seriously do recommend this film to anyone who follow me. I am going to order this on DVD I think, it deserves my money.
Now, on to why it reminded me of high school. In high school I was a completely different person than who I am now. I was openly a lot nicer, by that I mean that I tried to be nice to people, overly nice sometimes, in some attempt to gain their friendship, even though I already had it. I was very self-less (don’t get me wrong, I still am, but my personality has changed so much now due to events I will go into) and I seemed to care a lot more for others than myself.
In high school I was a very very overweight person. Not like I am right now, I am still fat, but in high school I was obese, borderline high obese and that effected a lot of things. Although I was still a sports player, in teams and things like that, my weight effected me both in terms of confidence with girls AND success with girls. In Terri, he is very much in love (at least I read it as love) with a girl named Heather. Heather is beautiful, kind, and considerate of Terri when his other classmates and peers are not. Throughout the film he is infatuated with her until they finally become friends and, as not to spoil the film, one night changes everything. I had a situation or two very similar to this in school, where certain girls showed me attention that they knew would make me think they liked me, when in reality, they did not. After this happened a few times, I realised that I needed to be far more selfish and through years and years of realising that most girls are absolute shallow assholes, I became the person I am today. Someone who is still kind, still self-less, but, in order to reach that person you have to prove to me that you are not just a fucking arsehole, which many people fail to do.
Terri was great to watch because he seemed to handle everything far different than I did, the script was brilliantly written and executed and I think it is easily one of the best films I have seen that deal with the ‘High school misfit’ in a realistic way. Most go off on some kind of weird tangent for no apparent reason, this does not. This is simply the story of a very overweight guy, with a good heart, who spends his days at school being bullied and ridiculed for his size and choice of attire and spends his nights caring for his sick uncle.
Like I mentioned before. I recommend this film to everyone.
