Daydream Nation

Daydream Nation is the story of teenage girl, Caroline (Kat Dennings), moving to a small town that she totally despises. Caroline, just like the rest of the youth in her town, is bored with life and resorts to sex, drugs, and parties to keep things interesting. Feeling like an outcast in school, Caroline eventually falls into a love triangle with her English teacher, Barry (Josh Lucas), and the town's emotional druggie, Thurston (Reece Thompson). For reasons unknown, there's also a serial killer running around town as well.
Just like a Greek tragedy, Caroline, the flawed protagonist, gives an overview of the whole story at the beginning and goes into further detail as the movie progresses as to why the events occur. The movie also wittingly gives a back story for each character by dividing parts of the movie into "stories" to better explain the complexity of the main characters. I like how they jumbled everything around and tied most of it together at the end. However, some items discussed in the beginning, such as the serial killer’s significance or Caroline’s father getting cancer, were not even mentioned or concluded in the movie leaving me hanging and confused on some points of the plot. If something was not addressed, why did they even include it?  

I was pleased with the visuals in the movie. Even the little things, such as Thurston hallucinating his stick figure drawings were dancing or he was flying down the school hallways, were amusing to watch. The party scenes and even the love scenes were well done and tasteful. However, the ending with Caroline and her beau of choice and the sunset in the background caught my eye the most and left a lasting impression.

Besides the holes in the plot, my other major gripes for this movie were the odd soundtrack and the lack of special features. The songs were mostly performed by indie artists, but did not always match the mood of the scene. This caused me some confusion throughout the movie because I was not sure how to react or feel. Also, since this was a blu-ray, I was expecting more special features. Don’t get me wrong, the sound and picture looked awesome on my television, but a couple of movie trailers and a behind the scenes feature did not justify the price. I would have at least liked some deleted scenes, to better explain the plot holes or what was described in the beginning, or even a gag reel to make this version more interesting.

This movie was well written and they did an excellent job with the character development, but the plot holes, the anti-climatic conclusion of the serial killer, the awkward soundtrack, and the lack of special features bumped this movie’s grade to a "B-".