Fame High

Fame High, a timely plug for arts education, does what its subjects hope to do: it opens our hearts and entertains with truth.

It's not only this idealism that makes the subjects of Fame High so compelling, it's also their honesty, their willingness to open a window into their lives at that pivotal moment when they're taking their first tentative steps toward becoming their own person personally and professionally.

The dilemmas Fame High's four subjects face are real, and Kennedy gets plenty of drama from the prospect of failure and disappointment.

An ordinary look at four extraordinary kids, Scott Hamilton Kennedy's Fame High sticks firmly to convention but will please viewers who can't help but want the doc's sympathetic teens to escape the heartbreak most would-be artists face.

Director Scott Hamilton Kennedy (“The Garden”) favors formulaic uplift over investigation, failing to offer a p.o.v. on whether young creative people should be driven as mercilessly as these. Lackluster videography further dulls the pic, which culminates in frustratingly fleeting glimpses of the students’ year-end performances.