I miss this movie beause I really want to watch ROOM and I need to remind my self how mazing Brie Larson is. Real heroes do not always end up with glory and parades. Heroism is sometimes reflected in small scale actions that no one ever hears about but occur every day in schools, hospitals, or wherever there are people who need compassion. Werner Erhard defines true heroism as "the kind which ends up in the truth, in what works, in what is honest and real being brought out and made available to others." This kind of authenticity is front and center in Destin Cretton's Short Term 12, the story of troubled teens living in a short-term group home who are the recipients of empathy from counselors only a few years older who may have faced similar situations in their life.
Winner of the audience award at the L.A. Film Festival and South by Southwest as well as the narrative feature prize, it is funny and sad with a wide range of emotions in-between. Coming from the director's own experience of working in a similar environment for two years, the film is permeated with an air of authenticity and it is rare that a film has such uniformly natural performances.
