Bart Got a Room
Director: Brian Hecker
A charming coming-of-ager about the “prama” — that’s prom plus drama —of finding a date for the annual high school right of passage.
Florida teen Danny (Steven Kaplan) is determined to attend his school’s prom even though he’s missing one essential item — a girl. His low self esteem takes a further jolt when he discovers that all of his classmates have not only landed dates, but also a post-prom hotel room — even geeky Bart, whose room status is a running gag.
Complicating matters is the freshly minted divorce of Danny’s parents (William H. Macy and Cheryl Hines), who just want the best for their son, even as they cause further angst.
The movie is more interesting for its low-budget smarts than for its modest story. Rookie writer/director Brian Hecker called on friends and family to pitch in and make the film seem grander than its budget. The story is loosely based on Hecker’s own “prama.”
Hecker doesn’t push things too far, and neither does his cast, and it all works well enough to make this prom worth a DVD date. The meagre extras include pop-up production notes that really make clear just how much a shoestring Hecker was working with.
