Short Term 12 (2013) on Netflix
Grace Howard supervises teenagers at Short Term 12, a group home. Mason, her boyfriend, works alongside her. A new arrival, Jayden, has a history of self-harm.
- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.9/1096,166 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes98%
Trailer
Plot summary
Grace Howard is a young supervisor at Short Term 12, a group home for teenagers in trouble. She lives with Mason, her boyfriend and a coworker. Grace learns that she is pregnant and books an abortion appointment. She tells Mason about the pregnancy, and he is overjoyed, but she keeps her plan to herself. At the home, she and Mason focus on Marcus, a resident nearing his eighteenth birthday who is uneasy about leaving. Jayden, a recent arrival with a history of self-harm, keeps apart from the other teenagers.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Short Term 12 (2013)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Lakeith Stanfield was the only actor from Destin Daniel Cretton's short film to reprise his role, but by 2012 he had stopped acting, left his managers and did not own a cell phone; Cretton reached him by email to tape an audition.
- Cretton's biggest change when adapting his short film into a feature screenplay was switching the lead's gender: Denim, a man loosely based on Cretton and played by Brad William Henke, became Grace, a young woman and the facility's supervisor.
- Despite critical acclaim, Short Term 12 was shut out by every major industry awards body, including the Academy Awards, and the perceived snub of Brie Larson's widely praised performance drew major criticism.
- The film's editor, Nat Sanders, said the original cut was over two hours and "made you feel pretty depressed about humanity", so scenes were deleted or trimmed to lighten the mood, leaving a 96-minute final cut under Cretton's 100-minute target.
- Destin Daniel Cretton based Short Term 12 on his own two years as a line staff worker at a group facility for teenagers, and the short film version served as his master's thesis in film at San Diego State University.
- Most of the film's children were cast through open casting calls and had no prior acting experience; Alex Calloway, who played Sammy, found the casting call on Craigslist and won the role with a cell phone video audition.
- Short Term 12 was the first leading performance of Brie Larson's career, in which she played Grace Howard, the young supervisor of a group home for troubled teenagers.
