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Cast: Rooney Mara, Brie Larson, Georgia King, Tom Everett Scott, Chris Kattan
As Fernanda (Rooney Mara) enters her senior year at Tanner Hall--a sheltered boarding school in New England--she's faced with unexpected changes in her group of friends when a childhood acquaintance, the charismatic yet manipulative trouble-maker Victoria (Georgia King), appears. Shy and studious, Fernanda is usually the voice of reason among her friends--adventurous and sexy Kate (Brie Larson) and tomboy Lucasta (Amy Ferguson)--but when she begins a complicated friendship with Gio (Tom Everett Scott), an older family friend, she decides it's finally time to take some risks. Jealous of Fernanda's exciting relationship, Victoria begins to sabotage Fernanda's plans and plots to publicly humiliate her. Meanwhile, Lucasta struggles with her newfound feelings towards another classmate, and mischievous Kate is too preoccupied with making her teachers nervous to pay much attention to her actual classes. However, as each of the girls flirt with adulthood, they realize they still need each other to help get through their first grown-up decisions--and the consequences they bring.
As far as coming-of-age movies go "Tanner Hall" doesn't bring a whole lot more than you're use to seeing but it still manages to be an entertaining film by having well-developed characters and a great cast to play them. The story deals with a group of girls at a boarding school who are having issues with both their family lives and just growing into woman hood.
Rooney Mara is terrific as Fernanda, She can be seen in the up coming remake of "The Girl with The Dragon Tattoo," but she is not alone here because the rest of the cast including, Brie Larson, Georgia King, Tom Everett Scott and Chris Kattan all give great performances. Like I said before the story doesn't bring anything new to the table but it's still an entertaining movie with it's perfect mix of drama and comedy.
Production wise the film looks and sounds fantastic and Directors, Tatiana von Furstenberg and Francesca Gregorini keep the film engaging and moving at a nice pace till the very end. The fact that the story isn't much different than what we've all seen before holds it back from being something special, still with it's great cast and well-written characters you are able to have interest in each girl and in turn you care about how things end for them all.
If you like these kind of films then I recommend picking this one up, there's more to like than not making "Tanner Hall" an enjoyable film.
Released by Anchor Bay Entertainment
*** Out Of *****