An optimistic high schooler with musical aspirations must learn to accept help from her friends to overcome her personal hardships and fulfill her dreams.
Pam says: “Optimistic” is a light version of Auli’i Cravalho’s interpretation of her character Amber. Leading a double life–one, the perfect student and volunteer, the other, a homeless teen with her incompetent alcoholic mother — Amber’s musical gifts may be her ticket to success. That is, unless she stands in her own way. This is an overdone and overacted story filled with more genre tropes than I can count. There’s the boy crush who’s got it all together but Amber pushes him away. There’s the group of school bullies and the misfits all who dramatically effect Amber’s life. The one shining light in this film is Carol Burnett as an aging, cantankerous but secretly caring old woman in the posh nursing home where Amber works. Even with the likes of Burnett, and Fred Armisen who makes a few brief appearances, the film lacks any true emotion as various roadblocks and acts of heroism attempt to add interest to the story.
Perhaps teens will enjoy the commonly used storyline, but for anyone older, you’ll be bored to tears.
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