TEENAGE WASTELAND – Review by Sarah Ward
Teenage Wasteland’s 90s-era high schoolers were 80s kids first. As they grew up across both decades, they danced towards adolescence and then ran at adulthood during one of teen cinema’s heydays, as well as in a prime time for films about life-changing teachers. Their tale, so that of Middletown High School pupils Rachel Raimist, Mike Regan, Jeff Dutemple, David Birmingham and others in New York’s Orange County, could easily give rise to a throwback movie perfectly of their coming-of-age period: about a ragtag gang of disparate and rebellious youths brought together in a single class (not Saturday detention, but The Breakfast Club does quickly spring to mind) and the educator who taught them not just to seize the day Dead Poets Society-style but to truly care about the world that they live in.
A filmmaker may opt to dramatise Raimist, Regan, Dutemple, Birmingham and their classmates’ story, and that of teacher Fred Isseks, in the future. In doing so, they’d be making a movie about crusading journalists, too, who have their own film Garbage, Gangsters, and Greed to show for their efforts. Attempting to match documentarians Jesse Moss and Amanda McBaine’s uplifting and vital survey of this slice of history might be a fool’s errand, however, given that the co-directing pair extend their exceptional run since 2020’s Boys State — also spanning 2023’s The Mission and 2024’s Girls State — with a chronicle of the inspiration that sprang from Isseks’ pioneering Electronic English class. Initially, the motley crew of kids tinkering around with camcorders under the educator’s watch, and therefore learning by doing rather than merely listening, made rap music videos, karate flicks, skits, news bulletins and horror movie-style shorts. Then their guide, aka “Hippie Fred” and “Crazy Fred” to his students, heard from a farmer friend about potential contamination seeping from the local landfill.
In Teenage Wasteland, which premiered at Sundance 2025 as Middletown, the camera doesn’t lie about the state of the water infiltrating backyards and basements across the upstate NY area — as seen via the documentary’s treasure trove of archival footage, which Moss, McBaine and Telemarketers editor Christopher Passig have adeptly whittled down from 400-plus hours of material. Isseks, an ex-Middletown High School pupil himself, had a knack for explaining the situation in a way that his students could relate to. Just as pivotal as piquing their interest to investigate what was happening at the garbage dump, and why, to report their findings: encouraging them to do so with civic courage. He might’ve well have fired a starter pistol, because his mentees sprint at their task with enthusiasm and commitment. Among their early lessons: that bringing urgent attention to an environmental disaster that’s poisoning thousands isn’t as easy as it should be.
Screenwriters could indeed dream up the roadblocks that come the group’s way, such as patronising attitudes from established local media and an eagerness to sweep everything under the rug — literally hiding toxic waste under a cap, in fact — by town and county leaders. Anyone penning fiction could also imagine the breaks in the investigation, such as former insiders being willing to talk and the cooperation of a particularly fervent whistleblower. And, it wouldn’t be hard to conjure up the ties between the dump and organised crime, either, or the involvement of the corporate realm. That the facts stick so closely to the journalism-thriller playbook (eco-thriller, too, plus mafia fare) speaks to the predictability of human behaviour: the bulk of the powerful shirking responsibility and seeking to protect themselves; those who can take advantage for a profit doing just that; and the infuriated and impassioned, Isseks’ charges among them, battling however they can to fight back. Moss and McBaine recognise this truth, but smartly use it to further their examination of why inspiration matters. If Raimist and company hadn’t been so engaged, motivated by a class on their schedule like no other and a teacher who also fit that description, they would’ve given up long before Garbage, Gangsters, and Greed came to fruition.
Films about reporters chasing a big story are often competence procedurals, aka accounts of highly skilled professionals doing their job expertly; see: everything from All the President’s Men to Spotlight. Teenage Wasteland’s intrepid, fresh-faced correspondents are almost the opposite, as anyone would expect of teens getting their debut taste of journalism and hunting down a scandal. This is still as much a movie about persistence and perseverance, though, and about hard work, dedication and determination. A dream for anyone that’s ever wished for a real-life Press Gang experience, it also charts excellent work by successive student cohorts from 1991–97. Not only seen in the grainy 30-year-old VHS vision, outtakes and behind-the-scenes recordings included, but witnessed in candid contemporary interviews with Raimist, Regan, Dutemple and Birmingham in a meticulous and loving recreation of their school’s old TV studio, is how endeavouring to expose Middletown’s landfill plight, and being so empowered to do so by Isseks, helped shape who the documentary’s core student quartet became and how they see the world.
Moss and McBaine are no strangers to inspiring others themselves, boasting a filmography hailing back past 2014’s The Overnighters — which Moss directed and McBaine produced — that exemplifies their innate ability to source, appreciate, explore and share crucial stories. Teenage Wasteland heartily and winningly continues the trend. The filmmakers’ own stimulus, beyond reading about Isseks and his class in a 2020 article in The Guardian, was something surprising: Stranger Things, with its much-binged take on kids decades ago striving to foil conspiracies to save their community. Moss and McBaine are living Teenage Wasteland’s message, then, never giving up on finding inspiration wherever it strikes, and using it to tell essential and important tales.
