Makes me feel young again

Rating: 8/10 (29 November 2015)

This movie has such great vibe and energy, it makes me feel young again. As a single, middle aged man dealing with the politics and theatrics of the business world, I welcome this with open arms. Even though there are depictions of certain "darker" elements of our society such as fraud, deception and jealously in this movie, however much there can be in relation to a cheer-leading contest, the incredibly overbearing tone of hope, joyfulness and light-hearted trust - both in friends and romantic interests - dwarfs this. As a result the movie lacks any true cynicism and hint of despair and it's fantastic for it. In my opinion, usually feel good movies of a certain kind do feel more sinister than good, quite oblivious to how the blatant exposure to the exaggerated happiness of the characters and events unfolding make them hard to watch without getting suspicious of a fictitious, evil subplot that they are keeping from us. This movie just felt right. Characters were often silly, needlessly ambitious, and generally flawed in many ways but they felt sincere, believable and most importantly likable. They felt genuinely like high-school kids, kids who were probably smart enough to appreciate and enjoy their youth (unconsciously as with most people that age), yet not damaged by time and experience to waste their days on earth as cynical creatures. It's almost therapeutic and certainly enjoyable.