Michaela Mann in Heart of America (2003)

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Review

High school can be hell, and it makes for one heck of a dramatic entertainment, as proven by the gritty, gutsy, and emotionally engaging Heart of America (2003). With a cast and plotlines that could have been culled from local newspaper reports across the country, Heart of America manages to present all the various campus types--entitled jock bullies, insecure stoner rebels, freaky art chick, sexy special-ed. simpleton, the cool teacher trying to make a difference with tough-love ideals--and inhabits each with a fully developed individual. The resultant characters may not all earn an audience’s goodwill and sympathy, but each demands to be accorded the dignity deserved by every actual human being, something all-too-often left out of the high-school years.