This is pure formula, but it's really enjoyable -- glossy with tremendous energy.

| Sep 27, 2019

Actor Max Minghella cranks up the energy and flashy style for a directorial debut that makes you want to both cheer and dance.

| May 21, 2019

But while not exactly believable, this is still a feisty modern-day fairy tale that brought a great big smile to my face.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 21, 2019

As we've learned from Daniel LaRusso and a host of other underdogs in any manner of competitions, it's not impossible for heart to triumph over technique.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 19, 2019

You go to the fair, you get your cotton candy, you know what you're in for: nearly unadulterated sweetness that melts into nothing almost as soon as you take it in.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 19, 2019

This won't be the best movie audiences will ever see, but at least it's fun to watch with pretty visuals and upbeat songs.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 19, 2019

The debut film from writer-director Max Minghella... understands the transcendent power of a great pop song, but not how to harness that same energy in storytelling.

| Original Score: C+ | Apr 18, 2019

The musical performances increasingly become larger than life, with throbbing, generic beats and seizure-inducing neon strobes - a nihilistic carnival ride of possibility.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 18, 2019

With so many missteps, you must question why Teen Spirit was even released.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Apr 18, 2019

"Teen Spirit" is a stylish doodle. But it's from a first-time filmmaker who's still learning to draw and who likes to color outside the lines. So watch this space.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 18, 2019

It's not the slickness that sells "Teen Spirit" anyway, but its strangeness.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 17, 2019

Yet in a film seemingly aimed more at teens than adults, Minghella effectively updates that familiar star-is-born template for an arthouse-minded Instagram generation.

| Original Score: B- | Apr 17, 2019

Max Minghella's debut feature is entirely surprising, even if its plot is a tried and tested classic.

| Apr 15, 2019

It's a star-is-born story that, like its protagonist, is an empty vessel: anonymous and devoid of soul perhaps in an effort to be a surface onto which anyone could project, yet dull enough that few will want to.

| Apr 12, 2019

"Teen Spirit" is somewhere between feeling abbreviated and wearing out its welcome.

| Apr 12, 2019

Vivid colors and shimmering light communicate the singer's frissons and invite her audience to feel them, too.

| Apr 12, 2019

"Teen Spirit" is not a particularly ambitious film, and its impact was always going to be limited. But it's consistently intelligent, and Minghella assumes that the audience is intelligent, too.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 11, 2019

It's Fanning... who retains the sweetness of this heavily-trodden teen fable without ever tipping it over into cloying goo.

| Apr 11, 2019

Teen Spirit totally rocks.

| Apr 11, 2019

"Teen Spirit," Max Minghella's sweet and touching directing debut, is both proudly clichéd and refreshingly different.

| Apr 11, 2019