Stay the Same Never Change (2009)

Artist and director Laurel Nakadate takes us beyond the prepackaged and sanitized world of the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana to the true heartland of America and the tweenaged girls that inhabit it In Kansas City pop culture is something to be twisted and reshaped relationships are either nonexistent or refabricated and time is unstructured and teasing At the heart of these girls livesand this innovative work of cinemais a quest for understanding and a sense of place The risks run and solutions posed engender both laughs and tears The films amateur actors and nonlinear narrative bring an unnerving utterly human face to the challenges of young womanhood in a world that would prefer that girls watch the Disney Channel