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As the headline reads, the first reviews for James Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now have already come online, and they’re all positive. While they mostly focus on Shailene Woodley and Miles Teller’s performances, they’re great nonetheless. Hopefully it won’t be long until it’s picked up by a studio. I’ll keep you guys posted but in the meantime, here are some reviews. As always, click on the links to read them in full. First one is from FirstShowing:

Ponsoldt’s The Spectacular Now is a deeply layered, indie romantic comedy, coming-of-age alcoholism story all wrapped up in one. It’s sweet, it’s endearing, it’s charming, it’s emotional, it’s moving, it’s honest, it’s brilliant, it’s thoughtful. It’s about so much more than what it shows on the surface, and is just as complex as the characters are, evolving as it progress just as they do. It never resorts to cliches, it never takes the easy way out, and it has a momentum that keeps pushing the story forward at a smooth rate, never too fast or too slow. While I still love Smashed, Ponsoldt shows that he matures as a filmmaker each film, which is why I can’t wait to follow his career from here. But for now, it’s all about being in the “Spectacular Now.”

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“Live in the moment” is a nice platitude and a crappy life philosophy.  Vivacity is all well and good.  We should appreciate the present, but we can’t live only for the present.  We have to think about tomorrow because we’re probably going to be there.    In his wonderful new film The Spectacular Now, director James Ponsoldt explore the live-for-the-moment mentality with an authentic and earnest look at high school emotions, anxiety about the future, and first love.   Led by extraordinary performances from stars Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, The Spectacular Now is a thoroughly charming and surprisingly powerful coming-of-age story about the fear of looking ahead and the seductive safety of living in the present.

By investing in his characters and giving the actors room to flesh out their characters, Ponsoldt stops his movie from being a cautionary tale.  Obviously, “living like there’s no tomorrow” isn’t a good life strategy, but it’s an understandable escape.  It’s undoubtedly entertaining to watch Sutter flee from his responsibilities and neglect plans for life beyond high school.  But The Spectacular Now never lets its protagonist off the hook.  The movie doesn’t lecture and it doesn’t scold; it simply lets the present play out to an uncertain and ultimately more rewarding future.

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