The Perfect Life - Reviews

Booklist - August 1st, 2007

Starred Review

Issue: August 1, 2007
The Perfect Life: Growing Up in Urban America.
May 2007. Choices, DVD, $99.95. (9781933724126).

This gripping documentary follows the lives of five New York City teens during their senior year (or what should be their final year) in high school. Filmmaker Sam Lee’s connection to the students goes back to 1992, when she moved from England to take a teaching job at a Harlem school for disadvantaged youth and work as a summer-camp counselor. The powerful film artfully blends archival footage of the youngsters with clips from recent interviews and shots taken in their homes, on the streets, at school, and in other settings. The mostly loquacious teens, Lizzie, Lauren, Natkhia, Raymond, and Troy, are looking for “the perfect life” but face challenges “growing up in the inner city” with tenuous support from parents (often absent) and others. Lizzie is a scholarship student at a private boarding school, Lauren is a budding poet, Natkhia is a perennial school dropout who gets involved with a pimp, Raymond moves back and forth between Maryland and New York, and Troy’s grandfather dies, sending everything downhill. Easy to appreciate for its honesty, the film painfully shows the relentless obstacles facing these young adults, who want the best for themselves but have trouble achieving their goals.
— Carol Holzberg

Video Librarian - July/August 2007

The Perfect Life
(2006) 82 min. DVD: $99.95. Choices, Inc. PPR. ISBN: 1-933724-12-6.
In filmmaker Sam Lee’s The Perfect Life, poverty, drugs, and violence regularly disrupt the lives of five Harlem teenagers: Raymond, Lauren, Lizzie, Troy, and Natkhia, whom Lee first met in 1992, when she was their second and third grade teacher at the Neighborhood Storefront School, an alternative, tuition-free private school in Harlem. In 2002, Lee revisits the five teens—now 17 and finishing high school—following them over an 18-month period. In candid interviews, the young men and women reveal their ambitions, hopes, and dreams, while also describing the realities of their daily lives. Natkhia admits that she was dismissed from school due to poor attendance, then moments later, talks about attacking her cousin with a knife. Lauren adopts the Bahai faith while living in the projects and wins a poetry competition; Lizzie attends a boarding school in rural Massachusetts but seems torn between city and country life; and Troy and Raymond are struggling to complete their education, while constantly resisting the dangerous lure of street life. Their stories, combined with earlier footage of the children at school and summer camp, create vivid profiles of young and complicated lives. Without lecturing to her subjects or the audience, Leeunderscores the fact that lack of family support has significant repercussions for teens living in a challenging urban setting. DVD extras include a director’s statement, photo gallery, and a downloadable study guide. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (J. Wadland)

School Library Journal - September 2007

The Perfect Life: Growing Up in Urban America. DVD. 82 min. Choices Inc.. 2007. ISBN 978-1-933724-12-6. $99.95.

Gr 10 Up—Intense and devastating, yet infused with a sense of hope, this film provides a window into the lives of five teenagers growing up in the roughest parts of New York City. The film's title highlights the powerful undercurrent of optimism that all its subjects express at different points in their troubled lives. One young man explains his goal: "A perfect life would be constant progress." The teens all attended the same experimental school as children, traveling outside the oppressive confines of their city dwellings each summer for an idyllic camping trip. The juxtaposition of the nostalgic footage of the teens as children and today is striking—children who splashed carelessly at a lakeside retreat are shown progressing along a bleak trajectory as they confront the daily realities of urban poverty: drug abuse, absent or abusive parents, gang activity, shelter living, and even prostitution. In their own words, the young men and women contrast their hopes and dreams with everyday challenges as they struggle to create their own opportunities. An epilogue fills viewers in on what has happened in their lives since the project drew to a close; tellingly, the only teen to achieve her goals and attend college is the one who moved away from the cut-throat city environment. Reflecting on her family's move, she says "we have more time to focus on each other" instead of daily survival. A rich, though heart-breaking, addition to sociology-related curricula, the film raises complex questions about the possibilities of success for inner-city teens. Instructors should be aware that strong language and difficult situations are discussed with candor.—Meghann R. Matwichuk, University of Delaware, Newark

Educational Media Reviews Online - May 2007

Reviewed by Katherine Parsons, Information Literacy Outreach Librarian, Bronx Community College

Recommended

Sam Lee was a teacher at the Children’s Storefront in Harlem, New York. She taught there for several years over ten years ago. Ms. Lee decided to return to New York and checkup on a few of the students she helped mold. She locates Raymond, Lauren, Troy, Natkhia and Lizzie, now high school students.

Through candid conversations these students tell their former teacher about the challenges they have faced since leaving the Children’s Storefront. Poverty, the loss of a parent or grandparent, the need to feel wanted and accepted are some of the issues that have affected their lives. Raymond moved to Maryland but later returned to New York during the filming and Lizzie received a scholarship and attended high school in Massachusetts. At the end of the program, two out of the five has completed high school, one is entering college, two have been arrested and released and one is now a father.

After watching the film, viewers will ask the question, “Does growing up in an urban area have an adverse affect on a child’s success?” Children who attend schools located in urban areas are met with many challenges. Does that impede or facilitate their chance of success? I recommend this thought provoking film because it can be used as a mechanism of inspiration.