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The Spectacular Now movie based on Tim Tharp's book


Shailene Woodley, Aimee
Miles Teller, Sutter
I thought Shailene Woodley was one of the best parts of The Descendants, the George Clooney flick based on Kaui Hart Hemming's funny and moving book. The young actor was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress for her role as Matt King's rebellious daughter. Now she's turned that rebel on her head, playing the good girl in The Spectacular Now  based on Tim Tharp's YA novel of the same name. I had no idea who the guy playing Sutter was until I looked him up. He's barely recognizable but Miles Teller was the teenager who ran over Nicole Kidman's son in The Rabbit Hole. If you saw that you may remember him as pained and sensitive so he's doing a bit of an about face in this one too. He'll turn 26 on Tuesday continuing Hollywood's tradition of casting adults as teenagers in high school. 
The Spectacular Now premiered at Sundance in January (ya know that little bitty film festival that hunky Robert Redford founded) and it's set for the SXSW 2013 in Austin, Texas, which takes place March 7-16 as well as closing out the Atlanta Film Festival which runs March 15 - 24th.  I can't find a poster, a trailer, release dates or showtimes beyond the festivals yet but a distribution deal was just inked in late January and it's getting great reviews so that can't be far off.
The director, James Ponsoldt has said he wanted to make a motion picture that harked back to films like Last Picture Show and Splendor in the Grass , "films that just feel incredibly truthful and really go to emotional depths and where the characters just happen to be teenagers"  He calls it a "serious adult love story where the main characters happen to be teenagers ... at its core it's a profound, amazing love story." The film also stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead who Ponsoldt worked with in last year's Smashed, a film he co-wrote and directed. 

The director sounds so excited that I am too! The book came out in 2009. Have you read it? Here's the description I pulled from GoodReads.
"SUTTER KEELY. HE’S the guy you want at your party. He’ll get everyone dancing. He’ll get everyone in your parents’ pool. Okay, so he’s not exactly a shining academic star. He has no plans for college and will probably end up folding men’s shirts for a living. But there are plenty of ladies in town, and with the help of Dean Martin and Seagram’s V.O., life’s pretty fabuloso, actually.
Until the morning he wakes up on a random front lawn, and he meets Aimee. Aimee’s clueless. Aimee is a social disaster. Aimee needs help, and it’s up to the Sutterman to show Aimee a splendiferous time and then let her goforth and prosper. But Aimee’s not like other girls, and before long he’s in way over his head. For the first time in his life, he has the power to make a difference in someone else’s life—or ruin it forever."

Have you read The Spectacular Now? What do you think of Shailene Woodley as Aimee and Miles Teller as Sutter? 


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