Review: SHORT TERM 12 / Destin Cretton (2008)
May 6th, 2009 by Scott Marks
Destin Cretton directs LaKeith Stanfield in a scene from “Short Term 12.”
Short Term 12 (2008)
Directed, Written, Edited and Produced by Destin Cretton
Starring: Brad William Henke, Tania Verafield, Phoenix Henke, James Hansen, Scott Shapiro & Katelin Chesna Henke
Photographed by Brett Pawlak
Running Time: 22 min.
Rating: 
“This is our first audience award, so it’s nice to know that normal people like the film too,” Destin Cretton joked after winning the Audience Choice Award for Best Short Film at Boston’s 2009 Independent Film Festival. This is the second award the San Diego filmmaker’s Short Term 12 received. Earlier this year he was awarded the Short Filmmaking Award at the Sundance Film Festival.
Destin was a guest at this year’s San Diego Film Critics Awards luncheon and you can’t imagine how flattered I was when he credited me with an assist in getting his feature Drakmar: A Vassal’s Journey a distribution deal. At the 2006 luncheon I introduced Destin to Bennett Miller who was on hand to pick up his best director trophy for Capote. Destin just so happened to pack a screener and Miller was so impressed that he helped get it shown on HBO.
Short Term 12 is a knockout: a semi-autobiographical tale of a supervisor at a residential facility housing fifteen kids who are all affected by child abuse and neglect in unimaginable ways. Destin was fortunate enough to get Brad Henke (SherryBaby, Choke, World Trade Center) to star as Denim, the leader of a staff that is only slightly less pressured than air traffic controllers. Many of the kids are just one step away from juvy. There are cutters and teenagers molested by parents who want them jailed for performing the same act on their little sister. In just under 22 minutes, Destin skillfully tells us everything we need to know about these characters. His camera pinpoints the essential details in a manner befitting a director with twice as many films under their belt.
Destin was in Hawaii and out of phone contact when I tried to call. He answered a few questions that I had via email. What is the difference between Short Term and Long Term? “In the home that I worked at, there was a section called Short Term and one called Long Term. The kids in the Short Term section were under the impression that they wouldn’t be there very long. Sometimes that was the case, but there were a few kids who stayed there for years.”
I was curious whether or not Destin was trying to be at all critical of the people that run these housing facilities? With his bright yellow polo shirt, Denim looks like a giant camp counselor. After finding a kid’s stash, he brings a vacuum into the bathroom stall with him to absorb the smoke. He tells a new hire that “you have to be an a’hole before you can be their friend.” He seems to be as big a child as the ones he’s watching over.
“I can’t speak for group homes in general, as I only had experience in one,” Destin wrote. “And I had no intention of trying to expose anything in this system, but only to tell an honest story based on what I knew. And I definitely knew that some of the people working in these facilities are kinda like big kids, because I was one of them. I was constantly asking myself what the big difference was between me and them. Why was I the one taking care of them? But yes, that’s one of the main ideas of the film: screwed up people trying to take care of screwed up people.”
There were several “Henke’s” listed in the credits. His wife Katelin Chesna Henke plays one of the staff members, but it was Brad’s daughter that brought him to the film. According to Destin, “Phoenix Henke was adopted by Brad from a group home like the one portrayed in the film. That’s what initially attracted him to this story. We were never planning on having Phoenix play any of the leads in the film, because at the time, all the leads were males. But when she came in to audition for one of the background characters, she gave such an incredible and real performance that I re-wrote one of the characters as a female so she could play ‘Jayden.’ So this is Brad’s first time acting alongside his daughter.”
When last we met, Destin told me that he planned to convert his short into a feature. “I’m currently on the second draft of a script that’s loosely based on the short. Many of the characters have changed, mainly because I get bored trying to tell the same story twice. But all the main themes are there, and I’m pretty happy with where it’s going. It will be my childhood dream to make it one day.”
To purchase a copy of Short Term 12, visit the films official website. All proceeds will go towards pushing the film on the festival circuit.
Trailer:
Tags: award winning short, destin cretton, destin daniel cretton, San Diego, short term 12, sundance film festival, Trailer, VideoShare: 
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Great article on an up-and-coming filmmaker! I’d only heard about Destin from a fellow Hawaiian after he won at Sundance, so it’s a treat to see this interview with him. Notice that you have a talent for avoiding the typical questions/format in your interviews, too, which is the best–I really enjoy reading responses from filmmakers that are different from their usual promotional patter!
Thanks, Ada, but I must confess that I’ll only agree to an interview after I’ve seen and liked a movie. Nothing more painful than talking to filmmakers simply out to ply their unwatchable wares.