I knew kids in junior high and high school who would say weird stuff just to get a rise out of me. They would talk dirty, and it wasn’t insulting to me personally, but they could sense I was naïve, and they enjoyed it. They were just as insecure, but they didn’t carry themselves that way. They were unnecessarily ruthless for the sake of being so.
That’s the problem for Terri (first time screen actor Jacob Wysocki). He’s a big kid for 15, large and fat beyond his age. Kids whisper stuff to him about vaginas and squeeze his man breasts. Is that particularly insulting? It’s certainly annoying. And it doesn’t help that he has to put up with this junk when he’s living alone with an uncle developing Alzheimer’s and walking to school everyday through the woods.
The title character in “Terri” is in a tailspin, developing as an adult and now conflicting with whether he’s weird or normal, smart or mentally challenged, and even good or bad. I liked getting to know Terri and observing how he grows in these few weeks of high school. I would’ve liked to know him as a kid before life seemed so confusing, but the film’s third act leaves its character wandering in uncertainty. Continue reading “Review: Terri”