"Boredom Leads to Bad Behavior"
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What You Need To Know:
In the end, Terri is back where he started – an overweight, lonely, hopeless teenage boy. Thus, the movie has wasted an opportunity to show a character learning to grow up as a decent young man while overcoming the odds of a very troubled upbringing. Ultimately, TERRI is a slow, boring and pointlessly sad exercise in stunted emotions and leaves viewers with as bleak a feeling about life as its main teenage characters. TERRI also has a significant amount of strong foul language and strong substance abuse by teenagers.
Content:
(RoRoRo, B, LLL, S, N, AA, DD, MM) Very strong Romantic worldview about the ultimately depressing life of an overweight, tall teenager, who, however, cares gently and lovingly for the Alzheimer’s-stricken uncle with whom he lives, undermined by depressing depiction of bored teenagers drifting through small-town life and seeking refuge in alcohol and drugs, which saps the hope of friendship and true love from their lives; at least 22 obscenities (including 15 “f” words) and four strong profanities made more offensive by their use in the context of filthy and inappropriate taunting and comments by a particularly troubled male teenager who’s one of the movie’s antagonists; no violence; teenage boy inappropriately touches teenage girl and they are unaware other classmates are watching them (girl becomes ashamed and depressed about the behavior and protagonist tells principal she was verbally coerced into letting the other boy touch her) and some lewd discussion; brief upper male nudity after showing and when getting ready to go out for the day; underage alcohol use; teenagers abuse psychological drugs of elderly Alzheimer’s patient; and, teenage protagonist and his friends steal drugs from Alzheimer’s stricken uncle, depressing ending, and teenage boy obnoxiously brags about his sexual encounter with a female student.
More Detail:
TERRI is a character-based, very low-budget, independent movie that depicts the coming of age story of Terri, an overweight, tall 15-year-old small-town California boy who’s been abandoned by his parents and lives with his Alzheimer’s-stricken Uncle Joe. Terri has no friends and wears pajamas to school just because they’re comfortable, and he’s too lazy to change clothes.
Terri stumbles across a mean male classmate inappropriately touching a female classmate named Heather, who normally wouldn’t talk to Terri. When several students also notice the sexual activity and Heather is humiliated and in danger of being suspended, Terri intervenes to save her reputation with the principal, Mr. Fitzgerald. He tells the principal that Heather was verbally coerced into the act. As a result, Terri forms a friendship with the principal and a budding romance with Heather.
Just as Terri is getting his confidence up and starting to improve his life, a troubled male student named Chad ruins everything. He shows up at Terri’s house during Terri’s first date with Heather and refuses to leave. Then, Chad tempts both Terri and Heather into drinking and using the psychological drugs prescribed for Terri’s Uncle Joe. A long, unpleasant and boring scene brings the movie’s hopeful upswing to a crashing halt as Heather is embarrassed by the dark revelations she makes that night. She leaves Terri a note stressing she’s only his friend.
In the end, Terri is back where he started – an overweight, lonely, hopeless teenage boy. Thus, the movie has wasted an opportunity to show a character learning to grow up as a decent young man while overcoming the odds of a very troubled upbringing.
Ultimately, TERRI is a slow, boring and pointlessly sad exercise in stunted emotions and leaves viewers with as bleak a feeling about life as its main teenage characters. It also has a significant amount of strong foul language and strong substance abuse by teenagers.