Here is a sincere and traditional melodrama that opens with a brief sequence that slightly wrongfoots the audience: a small child running at night through a setting that calls to mind little Danny in the hedge maze in The Shining. But this is no horror movie; there is past trauma and tragedy a-plenty, but for the most part, this is a warm-hearted drama that plays out like a modern Mr Chips story.
Based on the real life of the protagonist Nate (Nicholas Hamilton), a delinquent youth in 1980s America, the film’s focus is on his relationship with drama teacher Mr Deen (Jared Harris); Deen is a likable but lonely man whose tendency to generosity reaches its apogee when he takes on Nate as a personal project after a series of bad choices by the troubled teen. Deen reveals at one point that as a youngster he harboured acting ambitions, with James Dean a particular touchstone, and indeed the film could almost be a Dean movie – Nate’s fondness for leather jackets and emotional outbursts strike a familiar note.
