AutCuddly Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

nightroses This film is well made and colouful, with close-ups of facial expressions. It's also sad to watch because rap is very serious and traumatic. Talking is very difficult and things go wrong. The main character is played by Kristen Stewart who finds school difficult. Her grades fall, she's lost her friends, she's picked on and there's a guy at school who raped her in the previous year. She can barely cope with all the school stuff, and then being targetted by one of the teachers giving her low grades. The symbolism in the movie is with trees and it may be her inner strength that she wants to find using art.

alfredsetian402 Wow! I just found out that today, January 20, 2014 is the 10th year anniversary of the release of this fine movie by Showtime. I really love this movie and have watched it numerous times.The actress Kristen Stewart shines in it.The main character is a young teenage girl named Melinda Sordino. Sordino is Italian for " mute," and Melinda can mean, among other things,a Linden tree. Ironically, the quasi "mute" Melinda is the very person doing all the narrating throughout the movie.Many other character's in the movie have similar type names, for example; Heather is a friend that unfriends Melinda because Melinda is too depressed. And Ivy who unfriends her because of a misunderstanding. In fact, Melinda refers to cliques as "clans" which is from the Latin for sprout.And the author Nathaniel Hawthorne is mentioned in her English class and Hawthorne is a hedge bush of the rose family.Hawthorne's book, The Scarlet Letter is mentioned as being full of symbolism.Which this story seems to also be full of.I can't figure out why the author,Laurie Hals Anderson, of Speak uses so many horticultural references.But interestingly enough,right after Melinda is sexually assaulted by Andy,who is a popular teen, Melinda stays in his Jeep Wrangler after he leaves her. She looks through the windshield as she's weeping and sees a large majestic tree. Is the tree a " mute witness" to the crime?" We see the rape in a series of flashbacks by Melinda. Later on, when she begins her freshman year at Merryweather High, her lovable bohemian art teacher, Mr. Freeman, instructs the class to pick a slip of paper out of a damaged globe that will have their year long art project on it. Melinda picks one that has the word " tree." She tries to put it back but Mr Freeman says not to because that is her " destiny."Also, she turns inwards and starts to cut class and hideout in a utility room at her school.And then she, like the trees and shrubs around her, starts to recover after the cold winter and she finally begins to regain her strength and courage. This may explain why the author used the tree as a symbol for Melinda.The story line does not suffer from several plots interweaving like we see so much of but rather all the focus is on this young teen and her nearly year long recovery from her trauma.She befriends a very nice classmate named Dave Petrakis. Perhaps more symbolism here because the name Petrakis refers to a rock or maybe even a bedrock. And he is supportive of her while never really knowing what happened to her.The cast is finely tuned and hums like (fill in your favorite set of wheels). Kudos to the composer Christopher Libertino for a fantastic musical score. His use of a chamber orchestra and piano near the end when Melinda and her mom are driving back home after Melinda was put through another ordeal by Andy, the teen who raped her the previous summer, takes that scene to lofty heights. Happy 10th Year Anniversary, Speak.

hnt_dnl I actually first saw SPEAK (2004) a few years ago right after it came out when NO ONE knew who Kristen Stewart was! My first impression was that I had just seen a provocative film about teen date rape and the young lead actress gave a sterling performance. Having seen it a couple of times since, I'm even more impressed with how good the movie is overall! On the surface, it seems like one of the dime-a-dozen movie-of-the-weeks from YEARS ago, but it is much more than that.I can't help but make a comparison/contrast between this film and THE ACCUSED (the Jodie Foster film from 1988 for which she won her first Oscar). I honestly have always thought that Foster's performance in that movie was heavily overrated and it is a hard film to watch, but for all the wrong reasons with it's by-the-numbers storyline of the victim fighting back, predictable courtroom scenes, and that overdone climactic flashback of the rape itself.SPEAK goes for the less-is-more approach and instead of Stewart's character Melinda Sordino going the histrionic route, she instead hides the fact that she was sexually assaulted and goes into a shell for the better part of a year, only speaking when spoken to (and sometimes not even then!). During this time, Melinda derives ridicule from her former friends and most of the school because the night of the rape at an end-of-summer party, she called the 911, leading to a police raid of the teen party of under aged drinkers, some of whom got busted; but because of Melinda's secrecy about the call, everyone just thinks she's weird and don't know the real reason for her actions.During Melinda's following year in high school, four important relationships develop for Melinda: (1) a new student Heather (fine work by Alison Siko) that befriends her and is completely oblivious to the situation; Heather represents total teen bliss and ignorance and can't even begin to comprehend Melinda's plight, (2) history teacher Mr. Neck (played with stern confidence by Robert John Burke); Neck is the "establishment", uncaring of Melinda's personal turmoil and is all about following the rules, (3) outspoken outsider student Dave (played with aplomb and appeal by Michael Angarano), represents an atypical male teen that is not obsessed with sex or cliques and has drive and ambition, and (4) art teacher Mr. Freeman (Steven Zahn in a typically fine performance); Freeman is the new, young teacher that can related closer to the students than his colleagues; he is the rebel that refuses to conform to societal constraints.Navigating her way through these new relationships as well as dealing with her well-intentioned, yet oblivious parents, a domineering and somewhat selfish mother (excellently portrayed by Elizabeth Perkins) and well-meaning, yet rather clueless father (solid D.B. Sweeney) somehow gives Melinda an inner resolve and strength by year's end. Somehow, SPEAK avoids many clichés and sheds an honest, informative, yet engrossing light into a very sensitive subject. None of the characters come off as clichés.All the more impressive about Stewart's work is that she was actually a TEEN when she did this film. Too bad it went unnoticed by the Academy. Not surprised, though. They wouldn't know a real honest film or performance if it bit them in the butt! She may have played an almost-mute character, but Stewart's work speaks volumes (pardon the pun) about her talent!

jpschapira It might be the effect of watching a lot of bad films in a row but the truth remains: sometimes there just comes a great movie. Jesssica Sharzer's "Speak" is one of those pictures that gets everything right. Like "Thirteen" or "The virgin suicides", it chooses characters, explores their environment and takes care of covering every aspect of a heartbreaking story. A heartbreaking story told, shot with respect is not the only thing these films have in common. The most important characters are girls, and the writer/directors are women. This can't be a coincidence. However, what changes is the point of view. Where "The virgin suicides" was seen through the eyes of boys and "Thirteen" was a whole new (extreme at times) experience for a high school girl, "Speak" takes a step back. It's a humbler movie; neither entirely poetic nor filled with the emotions its main character is desperate to express.Melinda (Kristen Stewart) has done something terrible and is starting the new school year without friends. She wants her friends back, but something else happened and it's making very difficult for her to walk calmly around the hallways. There is a reconstruction of events, poetically narrated, which includes images that represent the bliss of adolescence and its biggest fears at the same time. The music, a fantastic score by Christopher Libertino, works perfectly when we witness the past and also Melinda's everyday life. When her mother (Elizabeth Perkins) wakes her up and she's screaming, she says: "Don't worry, the boogeyman is gone". Melinda knows this is not true. She walks around with ghosts and talks only when necessary. We have the privilege of listening to her thoughts, but the movie title is precise about it: Melinda can't speak up."Speak" gets everything right because Sharzer keeps it real. It's an important detail in films like these that things don't get out of hand. Disbelief may cause distraction, but here the camera is not flashy, the dialogue is not excessive, the key moments are not over dramatized; the economy of resources in general is astounding and seems intentional. What we know about the multiple characters is from what Melinda thinks of them in particular moments or what she directly says to them in important situations. The rest we have to figure out for ourselves (specially the relationship of Melinda with her parents, also an important detail in movies like this one). The movie never explains or anticipates too much because its story depends on what we find as we watch it. Proof of this fact is the most outspoken character, and art teacher played by Steve Zahn, who has a typical bohemian/philosophic/life lesson intended speech that for any viewer may sound like bullshit. Art plays a big part in "Speak", but it's not due to the art teacher's words… It's simply because of the direct relationship Melinda experiences with art and how it widely affects her; a relationship mainly generated by the art teacher.Kristen Stewart is amazing. The depressive look on her face she has completely mastered finds its inception in "Speak". High school, lack of satisfaction, quirkiness that is sexy, a world of questions inside a world of unresolved problems and, in the end, some kind of kindness. You could say by now that she's typecast, but if I didn't say it before I dare anyone to find any other actress who can do it better. The close-ups of Stewart here are plenty and I find it hard to write (this means 'try to explain') how two eyes that seem lost in the middle of nowhere can transmit so much. I've already praised Stewart so. I'm a bit tired. Go and watch it for yourselves."Speak" is a fabulous experience, though not the happiest. You don't imagine how good it feels when a movie understands that there's nothing more left to show; that the story has been told and the screen needs to go black. I envy the way this film resolves its ending, when nothing else can be said. And don't forget the movie's called "Speak".