Nanette Burstein’s film, a success at the Sundance Festival, starts off as a documentary examining the mores of teenagers in Warsaw High, Indiana, a typical American high school — and then imperceptibly becomes something else.
What Burstein finds are five teens who don’t take a drug between them and don’t seem to have sex, but are looking for uncomplicated companionship and some way forward into adult life.

Only one of them, Hannah, can’t stand either Warsaw High or Indiana and wants to be a film-maker in LA, an ambition that makes her parents shiver in fear for her. The rest have more conventional hopes.

Colin wants a basketball scholarship and a proper girlfriend, Jake is a socially awkward geek who dreams of winning a girl like heroes do in video games, Megan is a bit of a bitch who is pretty and confident enough to stand on the student council, while Mitch is so handsome and full of himself that he tends to end relationships with hurtful text messages.

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Burstein orchestrates their passage through school with some sympathy and no real revelations — except for the fact that she guesses, probably correctly, that most teenagers are nothing like as dangerous and bolshie as a lot of adults believe.