10,000 Saints (2015)

The story centers around Jude (Asa Butterfield) a teen boy growing up in Lintonburg, Vermont. He hangs out with his best friend Teddy (Avan Jogia) who is also adopted. His dad Les (Ethan Hawke) is with a different family in NYC. In an odd plot point Eliza (Hailee Steinfeld) stops in Vermont, meets the guys and this suddenly becomes a pregnant teen film (not funny like Juno) with an absentee father and a bunch of people, all well meaning, pulling in different directions.This is an indy style film with the pseudo-deep soundtrack with beginning and ending platitudes. "Life is like a river and we are all minnows..." The time frame in the 1980s and uses the Tompkins Square Park Riots in New York's East Village as a background.Guide: F-bomb. No sex or nudity.

I watched this movie because I love Ethan Hawke (Predestination, Tape), Asa Butterfield (Hugo Cabret, The Ender's Game), Hailee Steinfeld (The Edge of Seventeen, True Grit). Nevertheless I have hated the characters since the very first lines. They look like the grotesque caricatures of themselves and I never succeded to make a real contact with any of them. The father (Ethan Hawke) is a moron, the kid is a jerk who almost died to sniff some lethal gas during 1988 New Year Eve and his friend is even more obnoxious and he deserves to die. By the way I do hate movies where the main character dies after 15 minutes. If he is a kid I hate the movie more. As an adult I felt ashamed for the character played by Ethan Hawke: how the he** can someone say to a 10 years old kid that he is adopted in the way he does?! Come on! And Johnny the Hare Krisna? I could not bare ANY of the characyers included Les' ex-wife. I mean, do you REALLY need to have one-night-stand sex with that di**head? Are you that 'hungry'? Is he that appealing? I'm not a bigot: I just have appreciated if Les' ex-wife had sent him to fu** himself! Nobody saves and the movie is like a false parade of stereotypical losers. You can survive without this movie, believe me

I haven't been this disappointed by a film in a while.10,000 Saints has a lot of problems but no action or plot movement isn't among them. The film's core message, while it won't blow your doors off, does have some substance to it. The problem lies primarily with the three young actors who are left to prop up the movie --- Butterfield, Steinfeld, and Hirsch.Of the three, I've only been semi-impressed with Hirsch's work. Steinfeld and Butterfield flail madly (though in oddly inexpressive ways) trying to unsuccessfully ape more talented actors (Steinfeld - Natalie Portman, Butterfield --- too numerous to mention).It doesn't help that the screenwriters (who are quite engaging writers usually) give them a hackneyed cross between an after-school special and a lifetime movie in terms of story development.This movie's most intriguing messages lie under the plot and in the emotional depth of field of its characters --- what they're NOT saying and doing, since they're all dealing with intolerable situations set-up by their miscreant "parents". But they have neither the tools or road maps to find such jewels, so instead we get the usual floundering youth story (teen pregnancies, friendships betrayed, etc.). Hawke and Mortimer are okay but even the lack of energy finally drains them as it does us. If these pseudo "punks" are this boring now, imagine how quick they'll fade into suburbia as adults. Frightening.And of course, it's all bookended by a flashback monologue that makes you wonder exactly what the Butterfield character is even trying to tell us in terms of what this whole experience meant to him. It's all too nebulous and meaningless for anyone over 17 to care about.The soundtrack is decent, other than that it's an absolute misfire.

OverviewWith the death of one boy comes a baby and many lives changed forever, and this film is about the guilt which inspires many people's decisions over the course of 9 months. Characters & StoryOn New Year's Eve in 1987, two children's lives changed forever. Teddy (Avan Jogia) died, and Jude (Asa Butterfield) and Eliza (Hailee Steinfeld) have to live with the guilt and consequences of that night. Which isn't solely them both playing a role in his death, with Eliza giving him coke and Jude having him huff Freon, among other things, but the fact he left a baby in Eliza's belly. Thus being the main plot of the film. One dealing with everyone's guilt over what they did or didn't do for Teddy; what they didn't do for their own children; and everyone trying to use that baby as some means of redemption. All the while, Jude tries to mend things with his father Les (Ethan Hawke), and Johnny (Emile Hirsch) tries to be there for Teddy's and perhaps convince himself he is something he isn't.PraisePerhaps the beauty of this film is that as much as it has the opportunity to be over the top, considering it features drug users, upper middle class New Yorkers, and a small town in Vermont, it is rather tame. Granted, watching Jude and Teddy do drugs like they did seemed strange, but only because it really did seem like, at first, the film was going to be about two high school guys trying to get laid, do drugs, and slack off into finals.However, with the death of Teddy comes a slight shock to the system, alongside Eliza being pregnant. And while there aren't any strong emotional moments, in terms of Eliza contemplating an abortion, or seeing Jude and his dad bond, at the same time every moment feels quite satisfying. For, overall, it has the feel of a television program. One which, if ABC Family actually ever planned for their shows to end, would fit just right on the channel. I mean, they would probably have to tone down, or eliminate, the drug use, but otherwise 10000 Saints would have been a good miniseries. CriticismAnd the reason I say the movie would have been a good mini-series is because it drops the ball on so many story lines. For one, despite Les pretty much abandoning Jude and his sister Prudence (Nadia Alexander), pretty much only Jude gets any quality time with his dad. Thus leaving Prudence without her own time to address how she felt about her dad leaving, much less taking up all this time with Jude and not even calling her. Alongside that, while Teddy's death is a well- established turning point, it is weird we never hear what happened to his mom after the funeral. Much less, it is sort of weird that when Johnny, Teddy's brother, learns that Eliza and Teddy played a role in his brother's death, his whole "namaste" way of being completely leads to not a bit of ill will against either of them.Though the ball being dropped doesn't end there. There is also the topic of Jude being adopted, and him never looking for his parents, despite Les letting him know they are somewhere in New York, and the film having a scene in the hospital where he is born; us not getting to know Ravi, Teddy's dad, who wants to possibly adopt Eliza's baby, to make up for not being in Teddy's life; and there are a slew of other stories which really make it seem that this movie had more ideas than it had time, or committed effort.Overall: TV ViewingWhile what is given by 10000 Saints is adequate, all the story lines which never are given any focus sort of handicap the film. For while Steinfeld and Butterfield do keep your attention, with Hawke and Hirsch helping, there are times when it seems there are roads not traveled that certainly should have been. Especially the one dealing with Jude being adopted for with Eliza so unsure of what she may do with her baby, it seemed like Jude's discovery of his own parents could have made Eliza's ultimate decision a bit more meaningful. Alas, many interesting story lines, like that one, are just talked about and not explored, and that is the main reason for this being labeled TV Viewing. The teases are all just to great, and what is ultimately delivered just doesn't compare to the many possibilities you get presented with, or the odd things in the movie which get ignored.