‘Short Term 12’ Is The Gorgeously Heartbreaking Movie Not Enough People Are Talking About

Last night was all about crying and crying some more. It should be noted, I am not a crying person, unless one of my kids does something exceptionally touching or someone is extra nice to me or I run out of Diet Coke and I have a mess of deadlines to meet. But Short Term 12, a movie directed by Destin Cretton and now available on pay-per-view had me bawling my eyes out but also astounded and finally hopeful at the end of it. Cretton wrote and directed the movie loosely based on his own experience working at a similar facility for kids.

It was one of those movies where I wanted to call each and every one of you and demand that you come over and watch it with me. It was so beautiful.

It tells the story of a couple who works at a foster care facility for at-risk teens. There won’t be any spoilers in this review, because there is nothing shocking or any huge plot developments that happen, it’s 97 minutes of meeting these characters and having them break your heart and falling in love with them. From the Wikipedia description:

Grace and Mason struggle to help Marcus, an intense, quiet kid who is about to turn 18, cope with the difficulty of having to leave the facility. But Grace’s own difficult past, added to the surprising future that suddenly presents itself, throw her into unforeseen confusion, made all the sharper by a new arrival, Jayden, a gifted but troubled teenage girl with whom she has a charged connection.

The movie won both the Grand Jury Narrative Feature Award and the Narrative Audience Award at the SXSW Film Festival, and I can see why. It makes you think about all these gigantic Hollywood blockbuster movies that cost a gazillion dollars to make and are pretty pointless by the time the credits roll, it’s all too often that we aren’t treated to something that affects us on an emotionall level and makes us feel something.

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I rented the movie from iTunes and it may be available on your on-demand service on TV, I’m sure Redbox will have it in the upcoming weeks. It’s rare that I see a movie that touches me in such a way that I want to make everyone I know watch it, even more rare that a movie is something I know I will think about for a long time after watching it. It’s that special. if any of you have seen it or do see it, you need to talk to me about it because it’s the sort of movie I will need to discuss for a long time to come.

(Image:  shortterm12.com)