Popular reviews

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★½ 5

  A lyrical and distinctively gorgeous tone poem of disillusionment and raging hormones; David Robert Mitchell's The Myth of the American Sleepover dives into the melancholy and the honesty within the darkness of the summer months, as teenagers roam freely in a state of searching and yearning for connection.

  While some of the acting is borderline amateurish and a couple of the character arcs aren't as satisfying as they're meant to be, the rest is a solid and beautifully defined work of feeling and emotional discovery. Characters talk, fight, flirt, smoke, drink, and seek, with some individuals discovering more than others, often in unexpected ways. The result is a film of remarkable truth, laden within shots of breathtaking simplicity and nostalgic resonance.

  As a first feature, It's damn good. Just on its own, The Myth of the American Sleepover is still damn good. Recommended for all fans of exceptional indies and simple cinema.

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  Review by Irwan Nur Rizqi ★★★★½

  "It's a myth."
  "A myth of what?"
  "Being a teenager. They tricked you into giving up your childhood with all these promises of adventure. But once you realized what you lost, it's too late. You can't get it back."

  This one is a mood piece. Thin plot and sort of mindless direction. Once you start, you'll hear the silence, still images of teenagers spending their summer holiday, spreading across the town showing their youthful modern naivety. This is where the silence takes the biggest part. You'll hear their pulse of impulsive hormones, throbbing constantly in their pinnacle of teenager's dream preparing for the uproar. Meticulous and colorful.

  Disturbing one of a friend who's masturbating to porno magazines. Watching B-movie together…

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  Review by Blain LaMotta ★★★½ 4

  Ouch. That's the sound of my heart filling up with the immense power of nostalgia. David Robert Mitchell's debut feature evokes an aura of sadness, not in a negative way mind you, but of a time no longer present and may never be again. A time of exploration, fun, perpetual awkwardness and human connection, both primal and sensitive. All the performers here act with intoxicating naturalism, which Mitchell surrounds with a palpable atmosphere that finds the most basic interactions emitting visual poetry. Growing up has its advantages, but nothing can compare to the uninhibited folly of youth. We can only cherish the moments we had, for when we lived them, we could never fully realize how happy they made us. We just didn't have enough time for that...

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  Review by {Todd} ★★★½ 3

  "Never mind... it's nothing" - Maggie,

  When does this take place? Is this supposed to take place in 2010? I'm actually asking so if you know please tell me.

  It's not perfect but the casting is great and the direction is a bit mesmerizing. To me this looked like it was going to try to be overly edgy and make me cringe but for whatever reason I found The Myth of the American Sleepover to be pretty delightful. It took about twenty minutes to adjust to the slow pace but for the rest of it I was immersed in the dreamy, summery, suburban vibe. This reminds me of late middle school/early high school more than most coming of age films…

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  Review by sprizzle ★½ 1

  It feels like a way too closely controlled observation of the middle school/high school/real life transition. It's David Robert Mitchell's first feature film and it feels very amateurish at times. I may be totally off base here, but to me it felt like a case of over-directing. Instead of letting kids be kids, it turns into let kids read lines. A little improvisation with this age group can go a long way.

  But as I said, maybe I'm wrong. I don't think he had much to work with so maybe we got the best possible outcome. At that point though, I think some recasting may be in order. These kids act more like robots than they do middle schoolers. And…

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  Review by Jordan Smith

  What's odd about David Robert Mitchell is that in two features he's proven himself to be the preeminent American auteur for movies about teenagers, yet the people in his movies don't really act the way real teenagers do. Sure, they're fixated on sex, but technology is nowhere to be found, they watch shit on tv that no teenager would watch, and they're often thoughtful types who worry about the fleeting nature of youth. (Also, like It Follows, there is the pointed absence of parents.) It's clear that Mitchell is creating a universe in which teens talk and behave in a more sophisticated manner than they do in reality, and in doing that, he's underlined his own theme: revising one's coming-of-age.…

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  Review by ˗ˏˋ Liam ˊˎ˗ ★ 1

  worse than riverdale i think

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  Review by Once upon a Tom in Hollywood ★★★★

  They tricked you into giving up your childhood with all these promises of adventure. But once you realize what you lost, it's too late. You can't get it back.

  Set in suburban Detroit over Labor Day weekend of some indeterminate year when teenagers had bad haircuts, no cell phones, and could still aimlessly roam the streets during the summer, this film reminded me a lot of It Follows (the director's followup film), in that parents and adults are pretty much completely absent from the story. The mood captured is one of coming-of-age nostalgia, and even though none of the 4 main story arcs really dive too deeply into a coming-of-age narrative, they somehow felt really insightful nonetheless.

  For some reason,…

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  Review by Vinny Simms ★★★ 1

  this was the movie in Under the Silver Lake that everybody was watching at the cemetery...is David Robert Mitchell trying to say that he desecrated Hitchcock's grave by making this movie?

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  Review by single white femalien ★★★½

  do movies about teens make everyone sad? is that the appeal for adults? to revisit your childhood or to pine for the one you never had? (i'm the second one.) i dont know. i am sad. is it just me? i dont know anyone. help me

  also i put "100,000 fireflies" on a mixtape i made for a boy and now im double sad and im gonna go kms

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  Review by UltimateMovieRankings ★★★

  In this one 4 young people navigate the suburban wonderland of metro-Detroit looking for love and adventure on the last weekend of summer. This has a pretty large cast of very young actors....all of which do a pretty good job. The story is easy to follow and is very believable...the only drawback is nothing really happens in the movie. It is like going to a good party....but since nothing really happened ...you have nothing really interesting to report the next day. Final thought....this is a decent movie...but does nothing to score higher than a 3 star rating in my book.

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  Review by matthewcutchen ★★★

  Now officially a David Robert Mitchell completionist!

  Alas…it didn’t go as well as I hoped.

  The movie’s main issue was that the acting was just weak. Which I totally understand and honestly just comes with the low-budget coming-of-age thing. Still, this movie was mostly about the quiet moments, the things not said, the subtle insinuation of deeper emotions—instead of the usual “talkie” indie dramedies that let them just goof off more—and the teenage actors just didn’t have what was required to pull off that kind of subtlety.

  That said, his directing is fantastic and what he was trying to pull off was a really original take on the coming-of-age genre. In some ways, it’s almost too cinematic for the content.…