One Twenty-Six (dir. Dan Lesser)

By: Adam Freed

The science of the developing teenage mind is as fascinating as it is terrifying.  While the brain’s emotional response center, the amygdala, is fully formed by middle adolescence, its prefrontal cortex, responsible for impulse control, doesn’t reach maturation until nearly a decade later.  This gap in neurological development creates a dangerous chasm that explains a great deal of teen risk-taking behavior, and acts as the engine behind Director Dan Lesser’s hair-raising short film One Twenty-Six.  Featuring a quartet of first-time actors, One Twenty-Six exudes an unpolished realism pertaining to the way in which young men resort to tribalistic social interactions as they seek acceptance.  For Evan, played with all the nuanced hallmarks of teen insecurity by Ethan Highsmith, his desperation to impress, triggers a rapidly compounding series of high-risk choices that culminate in a tragically realistic climactic epiphany.

To witness teenage boys in their natural habitat comes with a dizzying array of false bravado and ignorant speech, but one cannot escape the notion that if given the opportunity to peel back the psychological layers of each of the film’s four central characters, there is a menacing desperation within them to find belonging.  This type of grim snapshot is reminiscent of Larry Clark’s 1995 teen cult film Kids, and much more recently Sean Wang’s profound coming of age story Dìdi.  In the cases of both films, and the latest work of Dan Lesser, teen life is presented as an event that one merely survives by the grace of a higher power.  What is most unmistakably brilliant about One Twenty-Six is the intentionally tactile and textured manner of its physical presentation.  Every shot in Lesser’s film drips with visual authenticity, from a fast food parking lot to the crowded interior of Evan’s MINI Cooper, there is a precise aesthetic at work, one that a keen eye may recognize as the work of director of photography, and Academy Award winner, Sam Davis (The Singers).  Most short films do not have the luxury of scope, a reality that limits storytelling in most cases to witnessing little more than a single slice of life.  In the case of One Twenty-Six, that slice of life is a hauntingly familiar demonstration of a prefrontal cortex under construction, and the potentially catastrophic results that manifest from the overwhelming desire for social acceptance.

Target Score 8/10 - Writer and Director Dan Lesser has his finger squarely on the pulse of teenage life with his granularly realistic short film One Twenty-Six.  Captured with a glorious visual texture, Lesser’s film is simultaneously a snapshot of the perils of growing up, and a parent’s worst nightmare.