Treading Water Like a Swan
Sutter (Miles Teller) is the life and soul of the party which is usually down to the flask of alcohol he has in his pocket. But Sutter's life gets thrown a curve ball as not only does his girlfriend Cassidy (Brie Larson) dump him for another guy but he wakes up from another night of heavy drinking on a random lawn where Aimee (Shailene Woodley) discovers him. Aimee intrigues Sutter as not only she is incredibly innocent and nice to everyone she doesn't expect Sutter to be anything other than who he is. It throws the usually self centred Sutter as not only does he start to care for someone else but beneath the facade Sutter is a mess and he is going to have to confront that mess.
I have probably mentioned this before but if they ever make a movie which requires someone to play a young Vince Vaughn Miles Sutter is a shoe in. Sutter's style of loud acting and full of yourself comedy is so similar to Vaughn's it is a little freaky and in truth all he needs to do is find himself an Owen Wilson look-alike and he would be set up for life. That style of comedy is a big part of "The Spectacular Now" with Miles playing a live for the day type guy with some sort of hustle going on and a quick line to answer back with.
But of course all this comedy with the character of Sutter being mister confident is all a facade to hide all the turmoil which is leading Sutter to not think of the future and become self destructive with his actions. As such we have Aimee the catalyst which throws him off his game thanks to her being so nice and in being nice leads to him confronting what is making him not want to plan for the future. I won't go in to detail as to how this plays out but of course you can guess things won't be smooth and the fear of the unknown and of being disappointed will cause issues for Sutter along the way.
Now I will be all honest and say that whilst entertaining "The Spectacular Now" didn't blow me away and again this felt like a movie where the director's styling some times over powered the movie. In truth it felt like Ponsoldt was trying to capture a natural look but it leads to some poorly lit scenes and some scenes which feel constructed to be too natural.
What this all boils down to is that "The Spectacular Now" certainly has an interesting storyline whilst Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley work very well together. But for me the attempt to keep things looking natural end up feeling forced and not always of a benefit to the movie.
