“Class of 2019, you’re graduating this year. And you know what? You should know the truth. We were never really a yearbook committee. Instead, we’re gonna make our own secret movie, which you all get to see very, very soon. It’s the movie you deserve. The truth about high school.”
This statement comes about eight minutes into Ethan Eng’s “Therapy Dogs,” and it serves as both a promise and declaration of intentions. This is a movie about high school, made by high schoolers. Specifically Eng and his friend, Justin Morrice, who went through their high school with a camera their senior year and just filmed the people around them. They did so with one purpose: to create an honest, deglamorized portrait of the high school experience. It’s an admirable goal, for multiple reasons.
The first is that, by and large, movies set in high school have never succeeded in capturing an authentic feeling. Either the filmmakers sanitize the story to the point where it comes off as absurd, a la “Dash & Lily,” or they go so far in terms of making things gritty and dark, as with “Euphoria,” that it feels equally unreal. It doesn’t help that most of the actors cast in high school movies are way too old to be playing their characters.
The second, and much bigger, reason that Eng’s film is admirable is the simple fact that he made it as a teenager. I’m a writer/producer, and I didn’t make my first feature until I was 25. Filmmaking is expensive, tedious, and involves tons of moving parts. So it takes a very specific kind of drive to make a feature before you’ve turned 20. And in an interview conducted via email, I got a sense for Eng’s particular drive.
“We wanted to make the ultimate high school movie, yet we had no idea what we were doing!” he explained. “Everything we did felt like learning it for the first time, so there was a lot to take in. And the school year didn’t wait for us either, so we eventually had to find our own way of doing things.”
That loose, improvisational vibe permeates every aspect of the picture. Most of the film consists of Eng and Morrice wandering around, pulling dangerous stunts — like jumping off of bridges and hanging off the roofs of cars — observing people, and improvising dialogue. There is a story, but just barely. As Eng explained to me, what story there is was either made up on the fly, or found in the editing room.
Despite this lack of formal structure, the filmmaking is anything but lazy. Different cameras and lenses are used to create a fascinating collage effect. And the chemistry between the characters feels real because, well, it is.
You can feel the passion, the sheer excitement at making a movie, when you watch the film. And that was very intentional. When I asked Eng what he learned from making “Therapy Dogs,” he said, “Things will only go well if you put everything you have into it. … When the stakes are that high, you don’t have a choice but to try your best. And you can only put everything into it if it’s meaningful to you.”
Now, as much as I admire Eng’s intentions, and the determination it took him to make this movie, I’m not sure it’s for me. For starters, I’m not a fan of these kinds of virtually plotless, cinéma vérité movies. It’s why Chloe Zhao’s films have never done it for me. And beyond my personal taste, the film’s portrayal of high school life, which is what it’s being sold on, didn’t ring true for me. I, as an example, never did drugs, never got into fights, never had sex, and never pulled dangerous stunts when I was in high school. Maybe I was just sheltered, but I think this highlights my earlier point about high school movies, even ones made by high schoolers, not being able to encompass every person’s individual high school experience. It just isn’t possible. I’m not expecting Eng to be able to do that. But, then again, he did kind of set himself up for this by making a movie that proclaims to show “the truth about high school.”
But these are minor quibbles. Perhaps this film does reflect your individual experience. And even if it doesn’t, the talent and ambition of Ethan Eng are on full display here. “Therapy Dogs” is the kind of movie that can only be made by young, excited people who don’t know what they’re doing, and I’m glad that it exists, and can’t wait for Eng to release his next feature.
“Therapy Dogs” screened at the 45th Asian American International Film Festival.