Customer Reviews

2:37

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just viewed this film for the third time. This fine analysis of kids at an Australian high school, how they see each other, but also (throught their personal comments) how they feel to themselves. Various stories wind around each other, intersecting, impacting and not, the stories of the lives of these kids, all leading up to a tragedy at 2:37 P.M. These high school students and their pain in this life (remember high school, it's a miracle I survived), their struggle to get on with it are deeply affecting to me. Being inside their skulls is sometimes almost unbearable. This is a very fine film.

I rented this movie, having no idea what it was about and began the movie only half watching it as I did other things. By the end of the movie I was in tears and online ordering myself a copy.

I hadn't seen Elephant by Gus Van Sant so I didn't feel like it was a rip off of that movie while watching it. I did rent Elephant afterwards and thought that movie was a complete waste of my time.

2:37 deals with many teen issues and I think everyone watching will either relate personally to one of the characters or know someone they can relate to one of the characters.

It's not fast paced, but this movie is worth taking the time to sit and listen to what the characters have to say.

Great writing and great acting!

Some of the reviews align this with Elephant, yes, there are some similarities, like: it takes place in a high school, it's very segmented in the story telling - but that's it. It's really a very different product than Elephant. It's loaded with rebellion, hatred, bigotry, obsession, and a few others that would spoil it for you. Well worth watching and owning - I'll be passing my copy around to my friends. . .

"No man is an island" wrote John Donne in a poem The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Donne (Modern Library Classics) . And, certainly, to think of the human being as an isolated creature makes little sense. We are, after all, social animals. We need others, and we need them desperately. Thalluri's film deals with the intensity of high school and the need of the other, presenting a handful of characters that coexist in the same place. We cannot say they are friends, they barely know each other, each of them carries a burden so heavy that they become estranged, alone, and that's when the fear of losing one's own humanity is ignited.

We have the case of Marcus and Melody: brother and sister. They come from a wealthy family, well structured around male hegemony. Their father is very much alike the primordial father from a tribe that Fred describes in Totem and Taboo. This primordial father can have carnal knowledge with his offspring, because in these mythical prehistoric time no such thing as incest exists; however, the jealous sons will savagely kill the father, this powerful alpha male (a figure that bears some resemblance with Lacan's inverted E, which symbolized "the one man not castrated"). By killing the totem-father only taboo remains, and thus incest becomes the ultimate sin. When Marcus witnesses his father having sex he attributes this attitude as a total disregard for moral codes, after all, Marcus seems to imply that his father acts in such a way that he has no choice but to witness the coitus. This traumatic event triggers something deep inside his consciousness and as a result the incest fantasy and the rape fantasy will become firmly inserted in his psyche.

The first scene with Luke, the high school jock, is most revealing, as we see him in his bedroom, in front of his computer, stroking his penis most vigorously. What images appear in the computer screen? Luke is struggling with his own sexuality, he is in a place that Lacan would denominate 'minus phi' which is the inscription of a point of fracture in the imaginary, that indicates a certain fissure that affects the constitution of the libidinal object in which one's own image finds support.

"Uneven" Steven is a kid that suffers of genetic malformations, not only does he have one leg longer than the other, but he also has a condition that makes him lose control of his sphincters, and as a result he wets himself in class, becoming the target for everyone's cruel jokes.

Then there is Sean, a boy that openly assumes his homosexuality and pays the price for it, being constantly mocked by Luke's friends and other guys in school. The only way for him to cope with this is escaping into a world of stupor produced by his marijuana consumption.

Finally there are two girls that play a very relevant role in this film, that owes much to Gus Van Sant's (listed in the credits) realistic and insightful approach of adolescence: Sarah, Luke's girlfriend, makes the mistake of caring too much for her boyfriend, and consequently once she begins to have doubts about her future with him, everything falls apart. Kelly, on the other hand, is perhaps the nicest person in school. She seems to genuinely try to help everyone, she is kind with boys and girls, instead of creating problems she tries to find a solution for them. When everyone attacks Steven she makes sure he's going to be OK.

However, all of them suffer from teenage angst. But this is not the typical, cliché angst. Lacanian psychoanalysts might ask... why despite all the amount of scientific knowledge that has been accumulated, and the efforts to establish theories that presuppose to grant us reassurance (Levis Straus structuralism and Hegel historicism that aims towards the acquisition of the Absolute Knowledge, in other words a conceptualization that implies a theory without remainders) we still experience restlessness? Lacan asked himself "why is it that we so much want to preserve the dimension of anxiety?". Anxiety is a horrible thing and yet is there a human need to preserve it? In this regard Kierkegaard may be closer to the question of angst when he speaks about the psychological ambiguity concerning this concept "Anxiety is a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy". Arguably, the existence of angst points out to something that cannot be reduced to a rational category, and without which a truly reflection on the question of ethics is useless. We find this sympathetic antipathy in characters like Marcus, who has a strong relationship with his sister and at the same time despises her. The antipathetic sympathy is present in Kelly, the sweetest girl that treats everyone kindly but that secretly feels alienated, incapable of anything but antipathy for herself.

However they are all connected, and what they do will affect the lives of the others. What happens then when during the first minutes of the film someone commits suicide? Life is a tricky business, that's for sure. But life as teenagers can be even trickier.

As an avid film watcher I am often very critical of films. While many are split upon how the director and producer deals with the subject of this film I believe that it shows a very realistic view of it. Thalluri should not be underestimated, but his work would not have survived if it were not for the superb performances of actors such as Teresa Palmer, and others. The film would get a five star rating if it were not for Thalluri's excessive use of the "F" word. It was a little bit to overplayed in the script. Knowing highschooler's mouths, would make anyone admit that the usage of the word in the film was excessive and at times played down on the films excellence. However, the superb acting, aura, and hard work that Thalluri has put into this film deserve credit because it scrapes upon many issues that have never been dealt with in cinema. Finally, Thalluri's leaves the film with a very objective view point that lets the film critic or viewer experience firsthand what each teen is going through. Overall, the film was powerful, and wish Thalluri well in his endeavors with his project World War III and its funding.

As an upper-classman in high school, I see the issues presented in this movie happen everyday. Although it does have the same filming style as "Elephant" (another good movie), the story is entirely different. "Elephant" is based off of the Columbine shootings while "2:37" is a dark teen age drama. I really wish that everyone in my school could watch this, just so that they could learn what their actions do to others. The ending scene is disturbing and dark, but it makes the point it needs too. I highly recommend everyone to watch this movie.

An Australian film available with subtitles in A DVD zone 2 edition at Amazon.fr. If you liked Larry Clark's Ken Park (Uncut Uncensored Version) [PAL], you'll love 2:37. It's about teenagers, school and death. Haunting."

This film deals with some bold subjects, but it is extremely similar to Gus Van Sant's film, "Elephant". The style and setting copies Van Sant's film so closely that it really drew me out of the film. The problems of the various students were also rather meledramatic. Not nearly as good a film as Elephant.

[written: 26-08-06]

2:37. A story about student's lives in a highschool, focusing mainly on the depressive moments of their experience of education and life, one of them commits suicide, but who? That's for the viewer to try and solve but not ever find out until the end.
I didn't realise this movie was based on a true story until the credits started rolling; so I kinda feel awful about badmouthing this movie since such a tragedy occured in real life. But honesty needs to be told, a tragedy occured through watching this film. You nearly fall asleep, roll your eyes and drum your fingers against the sides of the armrests in boredom.
There are about a million storylines which could have come straight from the actual grounds of a highschool. Adds to the realness of what happened? Probably. Good for audiences watching? Never. Lots of: "How are you"'s, "Good, thanks" etc, I'm sure you know what I mean. It sort of felt like watching Big Brother sometimes, lots of random conversations and happenings, occassional meaning in amongst the hollowness.
The switch to each character giving an interview to the camera, talking about their life lessens the impact of the drama and emotion of the film.
There is a character who is trying to hide the fact that he is gay from all his friends. American Beauty showed this in such a profound, dramatic way that it crashes over this movie like a wave in comparison. Still, those scenes were what made the movie more watchable and were my favourite of all.
A boy who has one leg longer than the other so he limps and wets his pants constantly, therefore getting teased. A candidate for the suicide, but shows little depressive or stressed behaviour when anyone provokes him.
The suicide scene was gory, explicit and raw. Too gory for my liking. Maybe it did have emotional value cause I cried at the end when the character was killing themselves. It was so graphic, lots of blood, crying and 'cover your eyes' moments. The character who commits suicide barely registers as a candidate for such an act and is barely shown throughout the whole film.
This movie was empty, hollow and tiresome. Whilst sitting in the seat I had a vision of one of those pie base pastries in which the inside can be filled with toppings of your choice. Promised myself at the moment to write in here that's what this movie reminded me of. If you asked me what this movie was like, that's what I'd tell you. Could have been made so much better.

This movie takes after Gus van Sant's direction in his movies. Two of the six characters were actually original, the others have been used or so well trodden they are irritating. The movie also spends an absurd amount of time showcasing the suicide at the end. Moreover, the movie is less about detailing the lives kids in school and more about homosexuality and how oppressed they are.

The movie offers you the ending and then back-tracks you through the events that brought the ending about.

This movie is horrible. I have watched over 850 movies and this is perhaps one of the five worst movies I have ever seen: Last Days, 305, 2:37, Battlefield Earth, and one movie I will never mention to anyone.