What's wrong with this picture?

Somewhere between manipulative and condescending, "American Teen" is a staged, phony treatise masquerading as a documentary, showing that all the cliches about movie high school teens haven't changed.

Since we had hoped that following 17-year-olds around for a year would uncover something real and fresh, this film is a major disappointment. Nanette Burstein reportedly shot 15 hours of footage that centered on four "types" - the popular princess, the jock, the nerd and the artsy misfit. It was done much better in the fictional "The Breakfast Club" (1985); here, the claim is made that what we'll get is "reality."

Slickly edited and well paced, it keeps us going only because the fragmented structuring often makes it indiscernible. It becomes clear that the lead characters are no more than stock caricatures, except now they use cell phones to break up and the Internet to send nude pictures. The situation dates back to "Rebel Without a Cause," the 1955 James Dean film that says more about today's youth than does this muddled mess.

The setting is Warsaw, Ind., described by a narrator as "a conservative community of white, largely affluent Christians." It suggests a kind of complacent togetherness that hardly promises drama.

Since the film's release, after what has been described as a triumph at Sundance, members of Warsaw High School have come forward to denounce the film as phony, claiming that some of the participants were forced to date certain people, were fed lines and generally put through "staging." The truth of their claims is obvious.

The most interesting of the quartet is Hannah, the artsy rebel who, unlike everyone else, wants to get out of Indiana. She fancies herself a filmmaker or a painter or writer - someone "creative." Her mother is mentally troubled and the girl lives with her grandmother.

Despite her claim of individuality, she becomes what she hates when she succumbs to the lure of the popular jock Mitch.

As in fictional films, the adults are noticeably crass and ignorant, suggesting that the producers hope to get a teen audience. Teachers don't understand and parents are evil. The worst of the lot is the father of Colin, the local basketball star. His father is a part-time Elvis impersonator who pressures Colin to get a basketball scholarship or he'll have to become a cook for the Army. Colin is a likable type who we're told is a big star, but there is nothing to back it up. The team seems to lose most of the time, but inexplicably wins the championship game. (Isn't that the way it's done in fictional sports films?)

Megan is the standard high school witch who wants to control everyone and everything. When the prom theme isn't to her liking, she vandalizes the house of her competitor. We are asked to believe that she allowed the camera to go along. In fact, we are asked to believe that all kinds of personal conversations were captured even though everyone must have known the camera is there.

Then there's Jake, who describes himself as a geek and hangs out only with members of the band. He has a bad case of acne and spends most of his time playing video games, yet he has at least two girlfriends and a date for the prom. While this is refreshingly in contrast to the stereotype, it's something of a puzzle. Why is he complaining? Is he a loser or does he just think he's a loser?

A series of well-done animated sequences suggests the fantasies of each character, perhaps because they are honest stagings rather than strained imitations of reality TV.

Director Burstein apparently uses the artifice of "documentary" filming as an excuse for not structuring her characters in a dramatic or cohesive manner.

If we aren't to have drama, then let's have reality. Here, we get neither.

Mal Vincent, (757) 446-2347, mal.vincent@pilotonline.com