Middle school can get weird. But if crushes, bullies and puberty weren’t enough, imagine if your classroom was literally falling apart. Insolation and chunks of a dropped ceiling drape the gutted computer lab. A janitor has barely touched the bathrooms in decades. As for the teachers — they really couldn’t give less of a fuck.
That exercise will only produce a vague impression of Kara and Jeremy Choate’s The Awkward Stage. It follows the filmmakers’ poignant and grotesquely real flick from 2022, Tenkiller. While The Awkward Stage doesn’t pack quite the emotional punch of its predecessor, it still gazes at you with an unflinching, acne-covered face.
The film follows Eugene (Harrison Higdon), a young teen who’s mercilessly ridiculed and assaulted by his classmates — and even a stoned teacher. He only finds peace with a sculpture of a woman’s head. Unfortunately, Eugene’s bullies constantly deface the bust. Meanwhile, his peers run amok destroying what remains of the dilapidated school and receiving terrible advice from their English teacher, Mr. Cobb (Mickey Reece).
A lean, 70-minute runtime doesn’t do terribly much to focus the film’s story. (Of course, an extremely narrow window to shoot never helps.) Several of the vignettes, while beautiful, drag for a few minutes too long.
Meanwhile, the film’s setting lends itself to a statement about the crumbling state of public education. But in this case, imagery only says so much. The Awkward Stage has the bones of something that could be like Harmony Korine’s Gummo — with a compelling purpose to boot. Instead, the plot feels like only a fraction of what it wants to be.
This doesn’t mean the film falls completely flat. The Choates have keen eyes for cinematography. For example, the opening crawl paired with smothered’s hard-hitting “backne” is powerful. Shots of a partially flooded school linger like the drying gum under a cafeteria table. And for what it’s worth, the school’s faculty is legitimately funny — most notably the social studies teacher (Diana Truong).
It takes a lot to juggle meaning with an absurd setup. Amid that absurdity, however, is a periodic aside that actually says the most on behalf of the film. A lowly custodian drags his feet from one task to the next. His unending work is as hopeless as trying to wipe graffiti written in shit off of a bathroom’s wall with dry paper towels. He’s miserable, but by the film’s final act, he’s the only person that sees clearly. And even at the risk of upsetting Eugene, he shows that one of the few ways to escape their publicly funded purgatory is to just leave.
The Choates have proven the power of their voices with Tenkiller. The Awkward Stage had the potential to exceed it, but it feels like what the artists really wanted to say remained on the tips of their tongues. Still, any deadCenter regular—or any Okie film fan for that matter—would be wise to keep an eye on them. With just a little bit more time, they’ll inevitably produce something extraordinary.
Find more deadCenter 2023 coverage at The Cinematropolis.
