Pitch perfect
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Comedy/Music
Runtime: 1 hour 52 minutes
Director: Jason Moore
Main Casting:
Anna Kendrick - Beca
Rebel Wilson - Fat Amy
Brittany Snow - Chloe
Skylar Astin - Jesse
Rating: 8/10
Pitch Perfect is a movie that directs its attention to high school and college students in order to give a comedic and different way of showing of how college by focusing on singing groups instead of the usual frat and society on take movies usually have. However, the singing groups still seem to function like any other Greek Life group you see on the big screen, were all the characters tend to live together and spend all of their free time together doing group activities. So you can see how this movie could give a slice of the college experience but not the whole thing as they neglect important things such as the characters going to class or interacting with anyone besides the singing groups. They do show the funnier and more amusing side of college such as joining clubs and making new friends and relationships with a lot of singing in the mix. So if you are looking for a more serious and no singing take on college, this is not the movie for you.
Looking more into the plot, we start out with the singing group, the Barden Bellas, who are at their first finals competition. Of course to no surprise, they mess up when the soon to be leader of the Bellas, Aubrey (Anna Camp), blows away the chances of winning by blowing chunks from being unnerved. This sets up that the Barden Bellas become a washed out singing group and how they catch the attention of the main character, Beca.
Beca is a relatable character to anyone entering college who has no friends and no interest in really doing anything. However she can relate to most personalities because she grows into a better person throughout the movie with the help of making friends and joining the Bellas. Just do not hope for all the singing and dancing in college because no one is just going to break out in song but there is plenty of bad jokes and sarcasm to go around.
So after Beca is pressured into joining the Bellas by the clubs co leader, Chloe, she starts her experience of struggling to find out who she is and what she wants to do while making new friends. Another thing this movie does struggle with is the diversity of the characters. Most of the characters are white and seem to have higher income parents who are paying for their college experience, yet when in college you have people of all different backgrounds and diversity. Although when it came to how the girls looked, instead of the usual “cookie cutter” look most casting has for women, there was a wide variety of body shapes and all the characters had their own personal looks.
Another struggle the movie has is talking about the developing relationships of some of the characters. We can see, for example, that Beca and Jesse became friends because they both work for the same radio station and are seen talking together multiple times. Yet it lacks to show that other characters relationships are developing, like how Benji and Beca became friends seeing they interact like they are friends but we do not know how they got to that point in their time spent together. On the other hand, when in college and you are trying to make new friends, it sometimes just happens out of the blue that you become really close with someone. It could also be noted that when working with a group of people to achieve a common goal, you rather become really good friends, like Beca and Fat Amy, or bitter enemies, like the competing singing groups.
Now putting friendship aside, the romantic sub plot of the movie is definitely more of the “movie romanic” then it is in real life. Beca throughout the movie starts to show interest in Jesse and he in turn shows interest in her. It seems that in college relationships do not develop as quickly as Jesse’s and Beca’s romance did. In real life people are more concentrated on their studies and college debt then finding “the one”. This does not mean it does not happen, it is just way less likely.
The movie as a whole did have a good plot and the idea was rather unique at the time it came out. It was smart to set it in a college setting because the fact that most singing groups are formed in college clubs. The movie was helped by a more diverse cast than is often seen but they could have done a little better on that front. Then using the social outcast as the main character makes it easier for everyone to relate to her because when going to a new place such as college, you can feel separated from everyone else. So the movie gets an eight out of ten because it used most of the tools correctly in terms of attracting a right audience and making it some what relatable to the college experience but it could have improved in some areas. We can see though that the film was not trying to focus on the “college experience” as they were making a funny movie about singing and girl power, but they used the college “card” in order to make it more appealable to a young adult audience. Depending on how you look at the movie, you can rate it in many different ways depending on what you are looking for. Also if I was giving my biased opinion, I would give it a ten out of ten just because I love the movie but I can see a lot of the mistakes they made on the college front.
Movie: Pitch Perfect. Dir. Jason Moore. Perf. Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson. Universal, 2012. DVD.
Image: "Pitch Perfect." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 27 Sept. 2016.
Genre: Comedy/Music
Runtime: 1 hour 52 minutes
Director: Jason Moore
Main Casting:
Anna Kendrick - Beca
Rebel Wilson - Fat Amy
Brittany Snow - Chloe
Skylar Astin - Jesse
Rating: 8/10
Pitch Perfect is a movie that directs its attention to high school and college students in order to give a comedic and different way of showing of how college by focusing on singing groups instead of the usual frat and society on take movies usually have. However, the singing groups still seem to function like any other Greek Life group you see on the big screen, were all the characters tend to live together and spend all of their free time together doing group activities. So you can see how this movie could give a slice of the college experience but not the whole thing as they neglect important things such as the characters going to class or interacting with anyone besides the singing groups. They do show the funnier and more amusing side of college such as joining clubs and making new friends and relationships with a lot of singing in the mix. So if you are looking for a more serious and no singing take on college, this is not the movie for you.
Looking more into the plot, we start out with the singing group, the Barden Bellas, who are at their first finals competition. Of course to no surprise, they mess up when the soon to be leader of the Bellas, Aubrey (Anna Camp), blows away the chances of winning by blowing chunks from being unnerved. This sets up that the Barden Bellas become a washed out singing group and how they catch the attention of the main character, Beca.
Beca is a relatable character to anyone entering college who has no friends and no interest in really doing anything. However she can relate to most personalities because she grows into a better person throughout the movie with the help of making friends and joining the Bellas. Just do not hope for all the singing and dancing in college because no one is just going to break out in song but there is plenty of bad jokes and sarcasm to go around.
So after Beca is pressured into joining the Bellas by the clubs co leader, Chloe, she starts her experience of struggling to find out who she is and what she wants to do while making new friends. Another thing this movie does struggle with is the diversity of the characters. Most of the characters are white and seem to have higher income parents who are paying for their college experience, yet when in college you have people of all different backgrounds and diversity. Although when it came to how the girls looked, instead of the usual “cookie cutter” look most casting has for women, there was a wide variety of body shapes and all the characters had their own personal looks.
Another struggle the movie has is talking about the developing relationships of some of the characters. We can see, for example, that Beca and Jesse became friends because they both work for the same radio station and are seen talking together multiple times. Yet it lacks to show that other characters relationships are developing, like how Benji and Beca became friends seeing they interact like they are friends but we do not know how they got to that point in their time spent together. On the other hand, when in college and you are trying to make new friends, it sometimes just happens out of the blue that you become really close with someone. It could also be noted that when working with a group of people to achieve a common goal, you rather become really good friends, like Beca and Fat Amy, or bitter enemies, like the competing singing groups.
Now putting friendship aside, the romantic sub plot of the movie is definitely more of the “movie romanic” then it is in real life. Beca throughout the movie starts to show interest in Jesse and he in turn shows interest in her. It seems that in college relationships do not develop as quickly as Jesse’s and Beca’s romance did. In real life people are more concentrated on their studies and college debt then finding “the one”. This does not mean it does not happen, it is just way less likely.
The movie as a whole did have a good plot and the idea was rather unique at the time it came out. It was smart to set it in a college setting because the fact that most singing groups are formed in college clubs. The movie was helped by a more diverse cast than is often seen but they could have done a little better on that front. Then using the social outcast as the main character makes it easier for everyone to relate to her because when going to a new place such as college, you can feel separated from everyone else. So the movie gets an eight out of ten because it used most of the tools correctly in terms of attracting a right audience and making it some what relatable to the college experience but it could have improved in some areas. We can see though that the film was not trying to focus on the “college experience” as they were making a funny movie about singing and girl power, but they used the college “card” in order to make it more appealable to a young adult audience. Depending on how you look at the movie, you can rate it in many different ways depending on what you are looking for. Also if I was giving my biased opinion, I would give it a ten out of ten just because I love the movie but I can see a lot of the mistakes they made on the college front.
Movie: Pitch Perfect. Dir. Jason Moore. Perf. Anna Kendrick and Rebel Wilson. Universal, 2012. DVD.
Image: "Pitch Perfect." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 27 Sept. 2016.