Teenagers are at the center of many of the films at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, just as they are at the center of an overwhelming amount of independent film in general. Often it’s a case of young, first-time directors making films about a time in their lives that’s not too far removed, as with Being 14 and King Jack, two first features that both focus on young teens, ages 14 and 15 respectively. They’re very different films that represent opposing styles to portraying teens, so it might be edifying to look at them together.
Being 14 details a year in the life of three French 14-year old girls, Sarah (Athalia Routier), Louise (Najaa Bensaid), and Jade (Galatéa Bellugi). The film takes an almost documentary approach, using long-takes and eschewing non-diegetic sound, to present an un-romanticized view of the girls’ last year before high school. King Jack, on the other hand, indulges in a more romantic portrayal of the age, showing 15-year old Jack (Charlie Plummer) trying to meet girls and escape bullies while hosting his younger cousin Ben (Cory Nichols). Both films excel at showing the awful turmoil of emotion that teens can go through during a single conversation; the excitement of trying to define yourself to the world turning to the fear of exposing too much or saying the wrong thing.
In Being 14, navigating the school’s constantly shifting social world is like walking on thin ice and transgressions real or imagined can lead to instant banishment, as happens to Jade, who goes from friend, to object of scorn and back again throughout the course of the film. The dynamics in King Jack are more clearly understood. There’s a power imbalance and Jack must bear its brunt after he willfully provokes the bullies, but the film explores how, within that imbalance, he can try to assert an idea of himself to the world (especially to the girls in town). The film shows both the ridiculousness of Jack’s posturing, but also that this form of imagination and bravado is an important survival strategy for a kid like Jack who has little else.
Being 14 is tightly focused on the 14-year-olds, which gives the feeling of total immersion in this world that its characters can’t escape, but it also prevents seeing the larger context of being caught between the pull of both childhood and adulthood. King Jack allows the audience, in the form of his cousin Ben, an avatar of the more innocent youth that Jack is leaving behind, as well as the cynical and violent older teens he could become, with the same girls interacting with both to illustrate the differences. Lurking even further in the background is Jack’s brother Tom (Christian Madsen), a former popular bully whose sins are repaid against Jack and whose unfulfilling adult life shows what awaits Jack if he never escapes his dying town.
Location is another key difference between the two films; Being 14 rarely leaves the confines of parents’ houses and school, giving little idea of the character of their hometown, whereas King Jack lovingly explores the decaying rust-belt town to show the socio-economic reality of the kids’ lives. These settings are also important because Being 14 only takes place in the most policed spheres for these kids, while King Jack explicitly wants to show life during an unsupervised summer, where Jack and others are experimenting and exposing more of their developing character away from prying eyes.
King Jack uses much more traditional plotting, giving Jack clear antagonists and a goal, while Being 14 is arguably much more honest by making its characters’ problems much more nebulous and unsolvable. But the plotting also makes King Jack much more enjoyable, showing more character growth over the course of one night than the girls of Being 14, who play musical chairs with social groups and boyfriends but exhibit very little change over the year.
On some levels, this is simply a contrast between realism and romanticism. Being 14 has an eye for detail and immediacy that portrays the bewildering lack of pattern and meaning in everyday life, while King Jack has an instantly recognizable story arc seen through a soft haze of nostalgia. But the difference between the films also seems to extend to the temperaments of their directors. King Jack is a film in service of, and in some sense inseparable from its protagonist; it wants the audience to feel that his romantic sense of possibility is very real, not just a youthful illusion. Being 14 treats its three leads much more coldly and allows very little identification; it stresses the surface reality that all the characters share instead of showing any interior thoughts or desires. This focus on the surface of things would be much more tolerable if the girls superficial behavior wasn’t so unapologetically nasty, where every day is a chance for more unthinkable emotional horrors. King Jack submits Jack to some truly savage violence and humiliation, but that coexists with moments of kindness and affection, neither of which is anywhere to be seen in Being 14. King Jack can be accused of sentimentality, but it’s just as untruthful to portray a world ruled entirely by meanness and spite.
