Review: Cheerleader (2016) ★★★

Whenever you sit down to watch an indie film, there is about a 50/50 chance that the budget will put a damper on your viewing experience. Sometimes it’s bad special effects, other times it just feels rushed and you assume that there was not enough time to produce a polished final cut. Though this is not always a bad thing and many films actually benefit from certain constraints, it is still easy to feel short-changed by low production values. Thankfully, this is not the case with Irving Franco’s coming-of-age film, Cheerleader. The visuals are stunning, and it inserts a relatively simple story into a beautiful, colorful, and surreal world. However, a few lackluster performances and strange artistic choices take away from an otherwise excellent production.

The film follows high school cheerleader, Mickey (played by Catherine Blades), as she deals with various hardships and complications that come with being a teenager. Much of the story is told through Mickey’s inner-monologue, during which she ponders her life and the quality of her relationships. Many scenes are set in cramped spaces, like her strange, sterile bedroom or the backseat of her boyfriend’s car. In these moments, we are given little context outside of Mickey’s narration.

She is popular, but this popularity puts unrealistic expectations on her; Mickey is obligated to act a certain way, dress a certain way, and hang out with certain people. She has feelings for boys at her school, and acts on those feelings, but sometimes doubts her own motives and desires. As she tries to reconcile the approval of her peers with her feelings toward people “beneath” her on the social ladder, she takes a path that threatens her own happiness and the happiness of those around her.

While the characters and performances often feel one-dimensional, it is difficult to tell if this was the intention of the filmmaker or a result of inexperienced actors. Mickey’s emotions are played out through the narration, but she often sounds bored with her own redundant thoughts. Using narration as a primary tool for storytelling is always a risky choice, and in Cheerleader, the voiceover gives us excessive exposition to explain every thought, emotion, and behavior ad nauseam. Sometimes less is more, but this concept is completely abandoned when Mickey’s thoughts run wild. Her interactions with others are also pretty stilted and unnatural. While this might be an attempt to replicate the sheer awkwardness of teenage romance, it seems unintentional. 

Even though most of the performances are nothing to get excited about, Chris Bert stands out for praise. Bert gives one of the most believable performances in the film as the shy, self-effacing nerd that everyone not-so-lovingly calls “Buttons.” Despite his earnest portrayal, Bert’s character is a prime example of the script’s shortcomings. Buttons sits in a garage with a series of screens that just constantly loop different computer-animated videos, and this is the audience’s cue that he is some kind of “computer wiz.” This characterization feels woefully outdated, like something from a John Hughes ripoff. To add insult to injury, the story largely revolves around Mickey’s attempt to make her boyfriend jealous by going on a date with Buttons, which is about as cliche as a teenage drama could get. She later realizes that Buttons is really nice and, deep down, part of her would like to be with him, but due to peer pressure, she is compelled to ignore her true feelings.

Cheerleader is problematic to evaluate because it is never clear whether these seemingly glaring “blunders” are actually intentional. The visual style is intriguing, and makes you want to believe that the over-the-top elements are meant to be parody or commentary on mainstream coming-of-age films. Better yet, they could be oddities of a story world that is eerily similar to, but nonetheless separate from the world we live in.

But again, none of it feels intentional. Instead, these elements seem more like the results of inexperienced acting and artistic missteps. In spite of this, the production quality is generally top-notch, especially for a low-budget indie film. It’s obvious that it was not just thrown together by a few friends with a video camera. This is an extremely well-crafted project and it comes so close to being a great art film, but a few head-scratching choices hold it back from being more than a technically-proficient indie flick.

Nonetheless, Franco shows a lot of promise as a director, and Cheerleader is definitely worth a watch for cinematography buffs and indie movie fans alike.

Cheerleader is currently available to rent or purchase via Amazon here.

Rating: ★★★ out of 5