Definitely overrated (contains one or two spoilers)

Rating: 2/10 (4 June 2003)

The characters are full of stereotypes - that would be okay if they were not meant to be realistic to begin with, but if I understand the director correctly, he seriously thinks his movie portrays reality. One thing that made watching this movie really hard for me was the horrible stereotypical teacher. Teachers like that man simply do not exist. No teacher is legally allowed to treat a student the way this man treats Bender. It is terribly exaggerated and I am getting very tired of seeing the same prejudiced two-dimensional teacher images in movies.
The story... well, what can I say. Very unrealistic, and the script is full of pseudo-philosophical blaaaah. I think I kept rolling my eyes throughout 3/4 of the movie. The supposedly "terrible secrets" that the students reveal to each other in the end seemed pretty trivial to me and left me wondering why I even bothered to sit there for 1 1/2 waiting for the truth to come out. I think if I were 15 I could relate to some of the problems the students talk about (isolation, insecurity) but, as I said, that is spoilt through the stereotypical characters. I find the typical "brain", "prom queen", "athlete" etc. boring to watch. Give us some interesting characters please!
I give it a 3 out 10, because even though I really don't like this movie whatsoever, I was pretty impressed by the actors and actresses.