I don’t know what it is with people these days. Despite the fact that everyone knows that kids are having sex, they still feel the need to make movies about it… and why? To enlighten the thoughtless masses? To raise the awareness of teenagers? Nope. These filmmakers aren’t doing this out of some sort of altruistic need to raise the awareness of teenagers or their inept parents. They’re simply doing it for the shock value. Most of them are doing it because of the groundbreaking success of Larry Clark’s 1995 film kids, a film that sent shockwaves through contemporary youth and prudish parents. However, that film had one thing that Jan Wellman’s film doesn’t have… relevancy.

Sex and the USA should probably be re-titled Sex and the Lives of Low-Self Esteem Surburbanites. The film tells the tale of some suburbanite who-ers who have the dubious challenge of dealing with their bland suburbanite lives. Oh, what’s wrong generic teen? My parents work all day and make dinner for me… life is terrible. They are spoiled, angst-riddled, and generally worthless. So when they start snorting cocaine and blowing all the dudes in the vicinity at some lame ass sex party, you’re really not surprised. What else are they going to do? After all, these individuals are about as worthless as a set of Air Jordans on a quadriplegic.
Jan Wellman’s film is an ugly, heartless, piece of trash with little to no redeeming value. The story, if it can even be called one, sensationalistic and laughable. The end result of all the unnecessary escapades of these kids? Don’t have sex! Oh yeah, groundbreaking shit there, Wellman. The only thing that Wellman does right is that he keeps from taking the film into pure sleaze level, thankfully eschewing the needless sexploitation that so many people would have taken with this type of film. But even then, the pacing is off, the acting sucks, and the story is about as interesting as one of those family shows on the WB. Wellman tries to unsuccessfully up the relevancy of his film by talking about George W. Bush’s abstinence initiative back in the day… but who gives a fuck about that?

The cast is a lifeless collection of dreamy-eyed teens who have no future in movies. Shayla Beesley, the film’s main character Audrey, is pretty damn bad. Her character is dumb as rocks, and Beesley’s alterna-chick performance is annoying. Quite simply… you want bad things to happen to her. Jaime Perkins, who plays Audrey’s sluttastic friend Krista, is somewhat better, but there’s simply no depth to her performance or to the character. Yeah, she’s got the look, but she brings nothing to the table. I’ve had shits that are more memorable than the cast of this film.

Sex and the USA wants to be shocking, but in the end it’s simply annoying. It operates under the assumption that the world is ignorant of how worthless suburbanite teenagers really are. Sorry to break it to you… but we all know. This movie is just as vapid as the characters in the film. You can find more substance in an episode of Elmo’s World.

Final Synopsis: It wants to be shocking… but it’s mostly just sucking. Skip this flick.

Points Lost: -1 for shit writing, -1 for shit characters, -1 for a lame premise, -1 for poor directing, -1 for bad acting, -1 for being boring as hell

Lesson Learned: Suburbanite girls are all dirty who-ers who won’t let you in their pink caves, but who will blow you and jerk you off… cuz that’s not really sex.

Burning Question: If a girl cries in suburbia, does anyone in the real world care?

Sex and the USA
4/10

Tags: 2008, breaking glass pictures, drama, high school drama, jaime perkins, jan wellman, latest independent movie reviews, latest movie reviews, new indie film reviews, shayla beesley