Choate Alumnus Screens Film Before Student and Faculty Audience Director Rick Rosenthal ’67 Shares his Experience
By Andrew Ricardo ’10
News Staff Reporter
Students and faculty gathered in Chapel basement on Friday, October 26th, to watch a film directed by one of Choate’s own alumni. “Nearing Grace,” directed by Rick Rosenthal ’67, depicts the introspective journey of teenager Henry Nearing as he deals with the loss of his mother, the destructive lifestyles of his father and brother, and his own search for love— in all the wrong places.
Commercially released in 2005, the film takes place in the 70’s and portrays the often unexciting details of adolescent life in middle-class suburbia. Director Rosenthal, who spoke to the audience after the end of the screening, said that he could relate very strongly to many of the things that occurred in Henry’s school, home, and personal life. Rosenthal feels that the film is “right on” in its dealings with many issues that adolescents still face today, such as family problems, love and sex, and even drug use: protagonist Henry is a fairly heavy pot smoker, and smokes up quite frequently during the course of the movie.
The screening was open to Choate 5th formers, 6th formers, and faculty, in keeping with Nearing Grace’s “R” rating. These eligible people received an e-mail describing the event, which asserted that “…the film appeals to the 17-24 age group, [but] audience members who grew up in the 1970's will also identify with the characters.”
Attending students had overall mixed feelings about the movie itself; most said it was good, but lacked originality. Jung Ha Lim ’09 remarked that “The movie itself was very well done, and I especially liked how the colors and the quality of the movie made it seem like it was actually made during the seventies… My only gripe about it was that the theme was way too common; adolescents in the seventies, sex and drugs… definitely overdone.” Some students further disagreed with Rosenthal’s assessment of the film as an accurate portrayal of adolescent life, especially when compared with the lives of boarding school students.
Rosenthal himself went to public high school for two years before attending Choate, which he remembers as one of the most important parts of his adolescent life. He made his directing debut in 1981 with the film Halloween II, the well-received sequel to John Carpenter’s 1978 horror classic. Other notable projects of his directing career are the film Bad Boys (1983; not to be confused with the 1995 film of the same title), episodes of the television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999-2000), and episodes of the still-running series Smallville (2003-2007). The screening of Nearing Grace was a welcome opportunity for students to see a Choate alumnus who works in film and TV at work.
