The Spectacular Now

The Spectacular Now
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	James Ponsoldt
Screenplay by	Scott Neustadter Michael H. Weber
Produced by	Tom McNulty Shawn Levy Michelle Krumm Andrew Lauren
Starring	Miles Teller Shailene Woodley Brie Larson Mary Elizabeth Winstead Bob Odenkirk Jennifer Jason Leigh Kyle Chandler
Cinematography	Jess Hall
Edited by	Darrin Navarro
Music by	Rob Simonsen
Production companies	Andrew Lauren Productions 21 Laps Entertainment Global Produce
Distributed by	A24
Release dates	January 18, 2013 (2013-01-18) (Sundance) August 2, 2013 (2013-08-02) (United States)
Running time	95 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2.5 million
Box office	$6.9 million

The Spectacular Now is a 2013 U.S. coming of age romantic comedy-drama film directed by James Ponsoldt, written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber and starring Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley. The film is based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Tim Tharp. The film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, where it garnered critical acclaim. It was released in the United States on August 2, 2013, and grossed $6 million worldwide.

Plot

Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) is a charming and popular 18-year-old who is partying and drinking his way through senior year in high school. When his girlfriend Cassidy (Brie Larson) decides he's a lost cause and breaks up with him, she starts seeing Marcus (Dayo Okeniyi), the School President and an athletic star. Sutter goes home and writes a college application supplement, in which he says that his biggest hardship in life has been getting dumped by his girlfriend the day before. He then goes out and gets drunk.

He wakes up on the front lawn of Aimee Finicky (Shailene Woodley), a girl in his year whose name he doesn't know. Aimee is about to do her mother's paper route, which she does every morning, though she gives most of the money to her mother to pay the bills, which Sutter protests at being unfair. Sutter does the paper route with her and they have a good time. He sits with her at lunch and asks her to tutor him in geometry, which he is failing, and learns she is smart, funny and into sci-fi and comics. Sutter goes home and deletes the supplement he wrote about his life's biggest hardship, abandoning it for the time being. Sutter invites Aimee to a party, where he introduces her to some Sci-Fi fans and then asks Cassidy to have a drink with him, but Marcus arrives to pick her up. Sutter and Aimee go for a walk and get drunk from his hip flask. Aimee confesses she has never been drunk before, never had a boyfriend and doesn't think she can go to college because she has to take care of her irresponsible mother. Sutter tells her she is not responsible for her mother, she is beautiful, and the boys at the party liked her. Sutter then kisses her to further convince her of this.

The next morning Sutter wakes up hungover and realizes that he asked Aimee to prom the night before. Avoiding his college application, Sutter IMs Cassidy, who invites him over. They get drunk in her room, reminisce and Sutter says he's happy with his life living in the moment. Cassidy say she needs more than a moment; she needs a future, which Sutter can't do. Marcus, who is jealous of the way Sutter and Cassidy have fun, confronts Sutter, who reassures him that Cassidy doesn't want him anymore, but perhaps Marcus could lighten up sometimes.

Sutter has been avoiding Aimee and her friend Krystal (Kaitlyn Dever) warns him not to hurt her. Sutter takes Aimee to dinner at his sister Holly's (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), who's married a wealthy lawyer and become a housewife. At dinner Aimee talks frankly about the death of her father from an opiate overdose and her dreams of a perfect marriage. Sutter and Aimee become more serious. Aimee invites Sutter over to have sex. Afterwards Sutter confesses that his mother kicked his father out when he was a child and has forbidden him from seeing him, even though he'd formerly lied and told her his father was an air force pilot. Sutter and Aimee make a pact to stand up to their mothers. Sutter buys Aimee a hip flask as a gift for prom, so they can drink together. Aimee is too shy to dance, so Sutter dances first with Cassidy and they're the center of attention, but then he drags Aimee onto the dance floor for a slow dance. The night goes well and Aimee tells him that she is going to college in Philadelphia where her sister lives, and can help her find an apartment and job in a bookstore. She asks Sutter to come with her and go to junior college there.

Sutter gets his father's (Kyle Chandler) phone number from Holly and arranges to meet up to see a baseball game, like they used to, and takes Aimee along. His father has forgotten about their plans and instead takes them to a local bar, then ditches them when he picks up a woman at the bar. He asks them to get the tab and meet him back at his motel, but when he fails to show up they find him back in the bar drinking with his mates, so they head home. Aimee attempts to comfort Sutter by telling him she loves him, but Sutter, angry and drunk, snaps at her. After almost causing an accident, he tells her he's no good for her and forces her to get out of the car. Aimee, crying and not paying attention to the road, is clipped by a passing car. Aimee has only a broken arm and immediately forgives Sutter for the incident, despite the fact that he had never driven her while sober. Meanwhile, Sutter is failing geometry, as he has always been bad at it and no longer has Aimee to tutor him.

At graduation, Sutter opens up his diploma and reveals that it is blank, implying that he failed senior year and did not technically graduate. After graduation, Sutter refuses to drink with Aimee from her flask. Cassidy informs Sutter that she is going to California with Marcus. He suggests he might pay a visit to them but Cassidy says it's a bad idea and she's trying to do things that are healthy for her. She hugs him goodbye and tells him he will always be her favorite ex-boyfriend. His boss, Dan (Bob Odenkirk), tells him he has to let go of some staff. He wants to keep Sutter on, because he is great with the clients, but only if he stops turning up drunk. Sutter says he can't promise that and quits.

Sutter then drives past Aimee, who is waiting for him by the bus to Philadelphia, leaving her heartbroken. He heads to a bar and explains to the barflies that it was for Aimee's own good. He drives home drunk, totals his mailbox, and gets in an argument with his mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh). He says he saw his father and he's just like him. His mother says he isn't like his father at all because he has a kind heart. Sutter reassesses his life and finally completes the personal statement for his college application, even though he knows it's way too late. He confesses that his biggest hardship is himself. Afraid of failure and getting hurt, he has tried to shut out everything and everybody, so while his life might not be "harder than normal," he has made it so with his own actions. While living in the now is okay, there will be another "now" the next day, and he will make sure his "nows" add up to something. He drives to Philadelphia and finds Aimee as she is leaving class. He looks up at her hopefully. She suppresses a smile when she sees him.

Cast

• Miles Teller as Sutter Keely
• Shailene Woodley as Aimee Finecky
• Brie Larson as Cassidy
• Jennifer Jason Leigh as Sara Keely
• Kyle Chandler as Tommy Keely
• Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Holly Keely
• Dayo Okeniyi as Marcus
• Andre Royo as Mr. Aster
• Bob Odenkirk as Dan
• Kaitlyn Dever as Krystal
• Masam Holden as Ricky
• Gary Weeks as Joe
• Whitney Goin as Mrs. Finecky
• Nicci Faires as Tara

Production

Principal photography commenced in Athens, Georgia, in July 2012 and wrapped a month later. While the novel is set in Oklahoma, director James Ponsoldt preferred to shoot in his hometown; he explained:

The script didn't identify where it was set – the setting just wasn't a big city. It felt vaguely suburban – or kind of like a college town. It seemed to me that the script had a sense of place in the way that Breaking Away did. Athens was such an obvious candidate as a setting to shoot the film in – and it was really the only place I wanted to make the film. Filming in Athens was incredibly meaningful to me. We shot in the streets and houses of my childhood!

Reception

Box office

The Spectacular Now opened in limited release in North America on August 2, 2013 in four theaters and grossed $197,415 with an average of $49,354 per theater and ranking #30 at the box office. The film's wide release was in 770 theaters and it ended up earning $6.9 million domestically and an additional $63,980 elsewhere for a total of $6.9 million, against its $2.5 million budget.

Critical response

The Spectacular Now was warmly received at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 92% based on 155 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Spectacular Now is an adroit, sensitive film that avoids typical coming-of-age story trappings." On Metacritic the film has a score of 82 out of 100, based on 42 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

The late Roger Ebert, in one of the last reviews he filed, awarded the film a full four stars, stating in his review:

Here is a lovely film about two high school seniors who look, speak and feel like real 18-year-old middle-American human beings. Do you have any idea how rare that is? They aren't crippled by irony. They aren't speeded up into cartoons. Their sex lives aren't insulted by scenes that treat them cheaply [...] What an affecting film this is. It respects its characters and doesn't use them for its own shabby purposes. How deeply we care about them. Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley are so there. Being young is a solemn business when you really care about someone. Teller has a touch of John Cusack in his Say Anything period. Woodley is beautiful in a real person sort of way, studying him with concern, and then that warm smile. We have gone through senior year with these two. We have known them. We have been them.

Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times also gave the film four stars out of four, describing it as "the best American movie of the year so far". He summarized his review by adding: "The Spectacular Now will bring you back to that time in your life when you were trying to soak in every moment, because everyone told you there's nothing better than your last year in high school." In The Hollywood Reporter, critic Todd McCarthy called the film "a sincere, refreshingly unaffected look at teenagers and their attitudes about the future... Ordinary in some ways and extraordinary in others, The Spectacular Now benefits from an exceptional feel for its main characters on the parts of the director and lead actors."

Dana Stevens of Slate also praised both the leads, commenting that "Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley have such a disarmingly direct and spontaneous connection as actors that Sutter and Aimee almost immediately come to seem like a couple you've known (or been part of) at some point in your life... The Spectacular Now captures the beauty and scariness and lacerating intensity of first love". Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman described it as "one of the rare truly soulful and authentic teen movies." He compared it favorably to Say Anything... and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, saying "like them, it's a movie about the experience of being caught on the cusp and truly not knowing which way you'll land."

In Variety, critic Rob Nelson wrote: "The scars and blemishes on the faces of the high-school lovers in The Spectacular Now are beautifully emblematic of director James Ponsoldt's bid to bring the American teen movie back to some semblance of reality, a bid that pays off spectacularly indeed." Cinema Blend called it "the rare Sundance coming-of-age story that feels like it matters", adding: "The Spectacular Now is an instant MVP of the first half of the festival, with potential breakout hit written all over it... you'll be hearing a lot about this one down the road, and it's got the goods to live up to the hype." Phoebe Reilly of Spin called the film "the next great teen movie" and "truly remarkable". She acclaimed Teller and Woodley for their "absurdly natural performances", with Sutter "uniquely irresistible" and Aimee "a perfect repertoire of nervous giggles and awkward mannerisms."

Accolades

At the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, The Spectacular Now received the Special Jury Award for Acting.

List of awards and nominations

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipients and nominees	Result
Alliance of Women Film Journalists	December 16, 2013	Best Adapted Screenplay	Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber	Nominated
		Best Breakthrough Performance	Shailene Woodley	Nominated
		Best Depiction of Nudity, Sexuality or Seduction Award	Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller	Nominated
Gotham Awards	December 2, 2013	Best Actress	Shailene Woodley	Nominated
Independent Spirit Awards	March 1, 2014	Best Screenplay	Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber	Nominated
		Best Female Lead	Shailene Woodley	Nominated
National Board of Review	December 4, 2013	Top Ten Independent Films	The Spectacular Now	Won
San Diego Film Critics Society	December 11, 2013	Best Supporting Actress	Shailene Woodley	Won
San Francisco Film Critics Circle	December 15, 2013	Best Adapted Screenplay	Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber	Nominated
Seattle International Film Festival	June 9, 2013	Youth Jury Award for Best FutureWave Feature	The Spectacular Now	Won
St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association	December 16, 2013	Best Adapted Screenplay	Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber	Nominated
Sundance Film Festival	January 26, 2013	Special Jury Award for Acting	Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley	Won
		Grand Jury Prize: U.S. Dramatic	James Ponsoldt	Nominated
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association	December 9, 2013	Best Adapted Screenplay	Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber	Nominated

External links

• Official website
• The Spectacular Now at IMDb
• The Spectacular Now at Box Office Mojo
• The Spectacular Now at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Spectacular Now at Metacritic