This is one of my favorite films of the year so far. Amazing ensemble (my favorite of the year so far), but Larson, Kaitlyn Dever and Keith Stanfield are especially standouts.

I saw this a few weeks ago and really loved it. The kid who played Marcus was INCREDIBLE. So heartbreaking. And Brie Larson is fantastic in it. A

I really wanted to see this when it was here in St. Louis but sadly I couldn't find time to get out to the theater playing it.

Brie Larson deserves some awards. She seems way older than her years.

I really wanna see this but it's not on Redbox, I haven't seen the bluray in any stores and it's not in stock on Amazon. How lame.

It is available in the Xbox Live Marketplace, if you use that.

It is worth blind buying. I went to Best Buy to pick it up, but they didn't carry it. The guy was nice enough to order it for me though.

Brilliant.

Brie Larson really hits it out of the park here showing she has what it takes to be an actress to be reckoned with for years to come. Honestly if Blue is the Warmest Color didn't come out in 2013, her performance would be my favorite of the whole year. The kids are also very good with the standout for me being Kaitlyn Dever. Keith Stanfield is very strong as well allowing for Marcus to be a very complex personality and I loved how his character's story was resolved. I just believe Dever's Jayden was a much more gripping character and her performance shows it. There were definitely some difficult scenes to get through throughout the film but probably the scene where Jayden encloses herself in the room was the biggest one and showed some of the best acting in the film from all involved. An easy second favorite of the year for me.

Heartfelt and quietly profound, Short Term 12 also astounds with its ability to navigate, with ease and grace, around the sea of landmines invited by its subject: a group home where troubled youths are sent by a parent (or a system) no longer interested in understanding and solving their internal crises. On film, this type of place, as well as the type of characters who inhabit it, tends to result in extreme artifice, perhaps because the challenge of drawing authentic, intense performances from a largely adolescent cast is compounded by the other challenge of finding ways to send certain characters on interesting journeys without the entire enterprise transforming into a pat and trite redemption story. This film more than overcomes the former challenge. It demolishes it. Led by a revelatory Brie Larson, exuding conviction and desperation as a counselor trying to guide her charges despite never truly conquering her own personal demons, the ensemble cast is dynamite, overflowing with fresh faces delivering hard-edged, yet tender and completely lived-in performances. And their collective achievement infuses the overall film with grit and a certain validity of the soul. For this viewer, no moment, whether humorous or tragic, rings false. My heart and mind were riveted and invested from frame one onward. Beat by beat, I sympathized or became frustrated with the flawed, worthy characters, and I rooted for them. This is the precise type of magic an earnest, independent slice-of-life drama should conjure.

A

I thought this was excellent. Nice to hear the director is a former San Diego student.

Holy fantastic! Brie Larson is a revelation! The film and her performance never feel less than authentic.

One of the year's very best!

So glad I blind bought this. For $14.99 for the combo pack on Amazon you can't go wrong! It's heartbreaking that Larson couldn't get nominated for a Golden Globe or Oscar for this. They failed to nominate the two best female performances of the year (Brie and Blue Is The Warmest Color's Adele Exarchopolous).

9/10 (A)

You guys weren't wrong. This was great stuff. Brie Larson is quickly becoming my favorite "new" actress.

A

She's come a long way since Hoot.

But WOKJ didn't

And we do better than the Oscars again!

!!!

This was fantastic. Holy moly. Also... KEITH STANFIELD!?

A

Short Term 12 was the best film of the year for me. It was great and Brie Larson was brilliant in it, even better than Room.

9/10