Detention
Movies like “Detention” and movies I enjoy discovering. On the surface, it sounds like a familiar premise, but in its writing and direction, there’s a bit more depth to it than we expect. If you look at the bare bones premise, Emma and Mark Cameron’s “Detention” is simply “The Breakfast Club,” with four students stuck doing detention for the day. Where Emma Cameron’s screenplay wins me over is how it looks at these four, and explores them from a mental health perspective. Yes, it can be corny and hokey, but when it gets to truths about each of these four’s lives, that’s where it delivers.
When one of the filmmakers is in the film in a prominent role, that can be a dicey scenario. Here, Emma plays Dr. Messerschmitt, the person who is leading the detention session Corey (Ricky Spaulding), Eden (Bianca Mariani), Nash (Ian S. Peterson) and Mary Beth (Anna Mulia). We see early on why all four have been sent to detention, but it’s throughout the day when they start to put trust in the Doctor, who’s having her own struggles, and one another that we see the catalysts for their anxieties. And then, the healing begins.
There’s a thoughtfulness to this film That I engaged with from early on. After we see what leads to detention for these four, we get a sense of the home lives of each character. Regardless of who they are, and their status in school, we see that these characters have a lot going on. Family stresses, identity issues (Mary Beth personifies this by having dog ears and her nose painted like a dog), and trying to hold things together, in general. Similarly, Dr. Messerschmitt seems like an unlikely guide for these students as they try to navigate these issues, as she is dealing with her own life issues, but ultimately, everyone is better on the other side of this film. The ending feels a bit too pat and straightforward, but the journey of this 83-minute film engaged me.
