Educational Media Reviews Online

This short film follows three teenage couples. Enrique and Gary are gay; Enrique is openly gay and eager to start a relationship, but Gary is much more reserved. Kristie and Willy have a one night stand, and Kristie ends up pregnant. After Matt and Erica have oral sex, Matt finds out that he is HIV positive from previous IV drug use. The stories are fiction but are presented in the manner of reality television, with the characters providing commentary at various points throughout the production. The film was written by Verena Faden, a teenager from Miami, and is made possible by Scenarios USA, an organization that seeks to help teens reach other teens through film.

This film says more in fifteen minutes than most films that seek to educate teens about sex do in a half hour or more. Each story deals with responsibility: Gary’s reluctance to rush into a relationship is partly tied to the volunteer work he does with people who are HIV positive, Willy wants to run away from his responsibility to Kristie, Kristie learns to accept that she is partly responsible for the pregnancy, and Matt learns to take responsibility for his actions when he tells Erica about his HIV positive status. AIDS ties together two of the stories, and all three stories are tied together when the audience realizes that the clinic where Gary volunteers is also the clinic where Kristie finds out that she’s pregnant and Matt finds out about his HIV positive status. The film reveals that sexual choices can have devastating and life-altering consequences without beating the viewer over the head. The teen actors are the ones who speak, and the combination of solid dialog and acting makes it all believable. Erica Naess and Josh King as Erica and Matt give particularly fine performances in the scene where Matt reveals his HIV positive status. Adults do not deliver the film’s messages through lectures to the teens, as is so common and lamentable in this genre. This is highly recommended for use with high school students.