Synopsis ~ As Fernanda (Rooney Mara) enters her senior year at Tanner Hall—a sheltered boarding school in New England—she’s faced with unexpected changes in her group of friends when a childhood acquaintance, the charismatic yet manipulative trouble-maker Victoria (Georgia King), appears. Shy and studious, Fernanda is usually the voice of reason among her friends—adventurous and sexy Kate (Brie Larson) and tomboy Lucasta (Amy Ferguson)—but when she begins a complicated friendship with Gio (Tom Everett Scott), an older family friend, she decides it’s finally time to take some risks.
Jealous of Fernanda’s exciting relationship, Victoria begins to sabotage Fernanda’s plans and plots to publicly humiliate her. Meanwhile, Lucasta struggles with her newfound feelings towards another classmate, and mischievous Kate is too preoccupied with making her teachers nervous to pay much attention to her actual classes. However, as each of the girls flirt with adulthood, they realize they still need each other to help get through their first grown-up decisions—and the consequences they bring.
Yes, the girls are all extremely well spoken and timed to perfection. But they all lack many of the relatable charms and likeability needed to carry them past their superficial “privileged little rich girl” personas, thereby leaving any coming-of-age antics seeming more like the flighty fancies of fortunate youths and less like life lessons.
The cast fully gives respectable performances, but suffer nonetheless from a forced stigma that even the bigger draws of Mara, Sedaris, and Everett Scott can’t dilute.
No extras is another strike against the disc, but only a slight one, as the contents pummeled the big names so a “Gag Reel” at this point seems like a fairly moot one.
So with wry richy-witchy rants but a plotline that never sees its fully intended slant, Tanner Hall may well be a wing left occupied by the seekers of scathing and superficial.
Cast: Rooney Mara | Georgia King | Brie Larson | Amy Ferguson | Tom Everett Scott | Amy Sedaris | Chris Kattan
Directors: Francesca Gregorini | Tatiana von Furstenberg
Central Writers: Tatiana von Furstenberg | Francesca Gregorini
Theatrical Release: July 2010
Blu-Ray/DVD Release: December 20, 2011
Genre: Drama
Supporting Cast and more Writers found HERE
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