Inside America

Inside America tells a documentary story through the lens of a narrative feature. The stories are all too real, but that’s what makes for a great feature film.

There are six teenagers all attending the same high school. Some of them are friends, but mostly they don’t know each other except for chance encounters. The stress of being a teenager confronts all of them while they live their lives in Brownsville, Texas.

Watching Inside America was like reliving high school. We all have known these six kids for whatever reason whether we liked them or not. The amount of accuracy this film had was what made it almost like a documentary. The dialogue, the acting, the settings, all helped build that realistic feeling. It was appreciated that they could capture certain aspect of teenagers without suffering from over-the-top stereotypes.

Living in Brownsville puts residents on the border with Mexico, so naturally there are more Hispanic kids attending the high school. When they spoke Spanish, there were English subtitles that cleared up any dialogue we might have missed. Unfortunately as the movie progressed, the subtitles weren’t timed exactly with the conversation, which caused me to fall a little behind. It often overlapped with English dialogue, so you sometimes couldn’t tell where you were in the conversation. There’s no excuse for this poor timing.

Inside America told a story about living as a teenage through hardships. Struggling every day, these kids are trying the best they can. The film may have messed up here and there on the subtitles, but overall the story commanded your attention. And while the ending is left mostly up to the audience, Inside America still gives you a clear message about life.