Blake Jenner

An unusually realistic teen movie, this drama gets deep under the skin of its characters, breathing new life into the genre. First-time director Kelly Fremon Craig (who previously wrote the rom-com Post Grad) has created an involving film about a teenaged girl who is easy to identify with. The script may try too hard to explain away all of her darker emotions, but it's sharp and entertaining.

Hailee Steinfeld stars as Nadine, a 17-year-old in Portland, Oregon. On the fringe of the popular kids at school, she feels like a loser who doesn't deserve to live. And she can't cope with the fact that her best pal Krista (Haley Lu Richardson) has fallen for her irritatingly popular big brother Darian (Blake Jenner). It certainly doesn't help that her mother Mona (Kyra Sedgwick) is an emotional wreck, or that Nadine is being pursued by the class nerd Erwin (Hayden Szeto), because she's much more interested in bad boy Nick (Alexander Calvert). In need of someone to talk to, she turns to her grouchy history teacher Mr Bruner (Woody Harrelson), who refuses to indulge in her angst. But he's also the only person who actually listens to her.

Steinfeld is terrific in the role, bringing an endearing raw authenticity to a character who isn't hugely likeable. As Nadine ruthlessly insults everyone around her, Steinfeld quietly reveals the sensitive soul inside, which adds a blast of complexity to her scenes with the superbly restrained Harrelson, Sedgwick and Jenner. All of these relationships are difficult and often startlingly realistic, as is the depiction of high school peer pressure. As Nadine's classmates, Richardson has a wonderfully twisty role as her childhood bestie who has apparently betrayed her trust, while Szeto steals his scenes as the hilariously awkward Erwin.

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Richard Linklater loosely follows on from two of his most acclaimed films with this lively university comedy set in 1980. It's billed as a "spiritual sequel" to his high school classic Dazed and Confused, which was set in the late 1970s. And it also represents an exploration of the next stage in the life of the central character from Boyhood. But even without those connections, the film is a fresh, funny, involving look at how young people react to that first flush of freedom.

It opens as Jake (Glee's Blake Jenner) arrives at his Texas university three days before classes start. He moves into a house with the rest of the baseball team, who immediately start tormenting him as the newbie. The alpha male is the swaggering star player McReynolds (Tyler Hoechlin), usually accompanied by his good-time sidekick Finn (Glen Powell). Over this raucous weekend, Jake navigates the rules of the house, including pranks, macho posturing, initiation rites, excessive alcohol and even a baseball practice session. There are also, of course, a series of colourful parties. And along the way he makes a connection with sexy theatre student Beverly (Zoey Deutch).

The film is packed with memorable characters, and the charming Jake is a terrific entry point for the audience. Jenner plays him as a smart, nice guy who isn't afraid to stand up to both the chucklehead jocks and the idiotic party boys. All of these guys are hilariously entertaining as they jostle for position in the house. The standout is Powell's talkative Finn, who is smarter than he looks. And Wyatt Russell has terrific presence as a woolly stoner with a secret. It's a lot of fun to watch the interaction between these guys, who are all in their late teens or early 20s, flexing their newfound independence by obsessing about drinking, drugs and sex.

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