My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea | Dash Shaw | NYFF 2016
This may be a spoiler, but in Dash Shaw’s oddball animated film My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea, the high school literally sinks into the sea. It’s a wacky and insane premise, but one that somehow feels just at home in the director’s comic-like animation style – no surprise there as Shaw is a comic book writer/artist.
My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea has one of the most interesting titles that you’ll see and it’s story is about a high school that sits on a cliff on the coast of California and after an earthquake the school slowly starts it’s slow fall into the Pacific Ocean.
We see the eyes through our protagonist Dash (Jason Schwartzman) and his best friend Assaf (Reggie Watts) who both write for the school newspaper that no one reads. Their dynamic is thrown into flux when Dash learns that Assaf has a fling with Verti (Maya Rudolph), another fellow staffer. This compiled with the fact that Assaf has been getting more attention from their editor about doing solo assignments starts a slow rift between the two best friends.
But there’s not much time for petty high school drama, as Dash uncovers that the administration’s plans for building a new auditorium could have grave consequences in the event of the next severe earthquake. The high school has multiple floors for each grade level, starting with freshmen at the bottom and going all the way up to seniors. The plan is to build the auditorium on the top floor. As Dash finds out, Principal Grimm (Thomas Jay Ryan) ignores all warnings about the dangers of doing so and of course, an earthquake strikes and chaos ensues.
Dash fully embraces the comic book writer and illustrator in him and creates a colorful animated world that fully embraces its lo-fi hand drawn animation style. This style goes quite hand-in-hand with the wackiness of the plot and the characters that inhabit this massive high school, which is a world within itself. It has fun with its campiness and with a brisk runtime of 75 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome one bit.
There’s also messages about the stereotypes and cliques of high school and how in times of trying we are able to push these aside and unite as one when the time comes. Of course there is also some satirical jabs at certain stereotypes and although these are of course surface level, there’s some welcome comedic wit to be found.
Although overall I found myself enjoying the film, the characters felt thinly drawn and weren’t all that memorable. There are funny one-liners and charming voice work from the likes of Schwartzman, Watts, Lena Dunham, Maya Rudolph, Alex Karpovsky and Susan Sarandon help elevate their characters.
While My Entire High School Sinking Into the Sea doesn’t quite deliver on it’s promise all the way, it’s a solid first effort from Shaw as a director and makes a strong case to keep him in mind as one to watch in the near future.
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