TANNER HALL is a coming of age story revolving around four young ladies in their senior year at a quaint New England boarding school. The trio of best friends Fernanda (Rooney Mara), Kate (Brie Larson) and Lucasta (Amy Ferguson) is soon compromised when new student Victoria (Georgia King) enrolls at their school. Always starving for attention, Victoria begins to try and manipulate each of the girls to do her bidding. Fern senses something is not right with Victoria and immediately puts up boundaries. Kate is eager to wreak havoc with the trouble maker, while Lucasta feels guilty for excluding Fern in their new adventures.
As a result, each of the girls begin to explore life in ways that they’ve never allowed themselves. Kate begins to flirt with one of the male teachers with no regard to what the consequences may be. Lucasta questions her own sexuality. Victoria contemplates suicide and Fern enters an affair with a married man. Each has stepped over a social line that has been drawn in society and they must choose to find their own way back or continue down the path of the unknown.
Although all four women playing the main roles were fine actresses, I never really cared about their problems or rejoiced in their wise choices. If I’m honest, I kept getting distracted that Rooney Mara is the same actress that will play Lisbeth in THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. Her transformation is incredible. But like I said, I was neither annoyed nor impressed with her character in TANNER HALL. I felt indifferent about her the length of the film.
Gregorini and Von Furstenberg allow the audience to get a glimpse of what it’s like for young girls who are shipped off to boarding school and what they must do to come into their own without the guidance of parents. Due to the fact that there were four different viewpoints and the film was only 96 minutes long, I felt like the stories were underdeveloped. There were even two additional characters (a dorm Mom and her son) who had significant storylines. I feel these should have been omitted completely. As a result, the film not only felt rushed, but it fell flat since the writers didn’t allow the audience to dig deeper into the root of the characters’ problems.
TANNER HALL has a cast of really interesting actresses and gorgeous scenery. On the outside looking in, one would assume that the film had the potential to be a story of losing oneself and the journey to find something new. Instead, the audience is left with a bland, “I just watched paint dry” feeling with very few redeeming qualities.
Video: 1080p High Definition (1.78.1): The actual school that served as TANNER HALL was a gorgeous setting. There was also a scene that took place in a cemetery that had so much texture, I felt like I was right there.
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1: There were never any particular parts of the movie in which I found myself noticing the quality of the audio.
