Movies: Keith

I obviously could not just talk about Jesse McCartney just once so here is my objective review of his film "Keith" which was released in 2008.

Review

"Keith" starts with Natalie played by Elizabeth Harnois in the back of a yellow track seemingly almost about to go over the cliff. The car does not have the brakes on so is slowly driving itself off the cliff. However, the scene suddenly switches to Natalie's eyes flashing open as she wakes up and gets up to practice her tennis at 5am. She then arrives at school and starts her AP Chemistry class and is paired up with Keith Zetterstrom played by Jesse McCartney. Keith is shown before this scene to be with a counselor playing pool and expressing his interest in Natalie by saying he's planning to have "fun" with her. They then start to talk in Chemistry and he coaxes her to go with him to these "adventures" and play these "scenes" where they both pretend to be someone else. One day they are both sitting in the back of Keith's truck and talking about what they want to do when they graduate high school. Keith talks about wanting to go to a truck show and Natalie is going to London with her best friend and boyfriend. While Keith is rambling on Natalie notices that the truck is moving by itself. She jumps out of the truck but Keith stays in the truck while the truck gets closer and close to the cliff. Meanwhile Natalie is sobbing and screaming for him to jump out but right before the truck goes over he swiftly gets in the truck and puts on the brakes. Natalie becomes upset and accuses him of having gotten "too close" and wanting to die. Keith responds by saying that she doesn't know what "close is". Mean while Natalie becomes involved with the school stud but still she goes out at nights with Keith and his yellow truck and falls in love with him. One day she discovers antidepressants in a coat that he loaned her and confronted him about it after he disappeared for two weeks. She found out he deliberately planned for her to be his lab partner and was shocked. She became more obsessed with him and was determined to find out about him so she broke into his locker to get his real address as she found out he lied to her about where he lived and everything about his home life. Because she broke into his locker, straight A student Natalie gets suspended and goes to Keith's real house but he refuses to see her since he was mad she found out where he lived. Natalie sneaks into his truck knowing that he would take a ride in his truck. Keith went to his secret spot overlooking "The Brick" where Natalie and her clique hung out and where he always watched her from. He stood there watching the other side sadly and Natalie got out of the truck. She started crying and telling him that she wanted to be with him and that with him everything was different. Keith crying himself turns around, rushes to her and kisses her. Natalie then gives him her virginity in the back of his yellow truck. However, once he gets her home Keith tells Natalie to forget about what they did and to go back to her boyfriend. She tells him "Fuck you" and he says " you already did". Natalie slams out of his truck and during the next couple of days is angry and sad about Keith. While driving fast to get away from her overbearing parents she notices Keith's counselor who she had met before along with a little boy named Billy who was a friend of Keith. She follows the counselor's car and walks into a store where she asks if Keith has seen Billy lately and the counselor told her that Billy passed away. Natalie, shocked asked how Keith knew Billy and the counselor said Billy and Keith were in chemo together. At this, Natalie starts crying and slams out of the store, she goes to see Keith but he doesn't want to see her. The next day Keith walks into Chemistry and tries to play everything off and Natalie gets upset at his jokes and stalks out of the classroom. Keith then goes by her house and she asks him why he did not tell her that he had cancer. He replied "at least everything wasn't sympathy for the sick kid" Natalie said that that was not fair and Keith gets upset and asks her if is fair that she gets to go to London and Duke University while he is dying and will probably not make it to his truck show. Natalie then convinces him to pull a final scene where they say goodbye and Keith insults her, telling her that he screwed her, screwed her big time. With tears in her eyes Natalie braves on and asks him to try the goodbye scene again. He turns around to leave but turns back and said that he was resigned to his eventual death but that when he met her it became "weird'. After a declaration of love he turns around and leaves, creating a goodbye scene at the airport. Natalie runs after him and tells him she's gonna stay with him until he's gone and they kiss. In the next scene Natalie is shown packing up Keith's locker and walks with her best friend toward her graduation. Keith is not seen and is presumed dead before graduation. The scene in the beginning with Natalie in the back of the yellow truck is the last scene with Natalie putting on the breaks before the truck goes over just like Keith had done before. This showed how Keith made her into a more impulsive and risk taking person and this is how Natalie keeps him in her memory.

Opinion

One thing i always ask myself is if Keith was not dying and if Romeo had not thought Juliet was dead would they have stayed together forever? I don't think so. The reason why Keith went after Natalie was because he no longer felt he should be shy about asking out the popular girl when he was dying and had nothing to lose. His imminent death was also the cause for his sarcasm, denial and risk taking tendencies. Would he have spend time with Natalie if he hadn't been dying? probably not and thus they would not have fallen in love. Just like Romeo and Juliet would not have made it since they didn't think anything through when they decided to run away. Is better when the character dies because is a tragedy and you get to cry and fantasize about what could have happened.

Performance

This was an awesome performance. Jesse McCartney was quirky and handsome and romantic. It was a beautiful love/hate relationship and their "scenes" and "adventures" are the elements that makes the movie sensational. It doesn't hurt to stare at the beautiful Jesse McCartney for a while and that is mostly why i continue to watch the movie repeatedly.

Bottom Line: WATCH THIS MOVIE!