To me, this movie is perfection.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Agnes 'Apple' Bailey (Vanessa Hudgens) has another fight with her drug-addicted mother June Bailey (Rosario Dawson). She tries to see her absent biological father Tom Fitzpatrick (Brendan Fraser) and gets arrested. He is a wealthy broker with a young upper class family. The troubled Apple wants him to get her out of the foster system. She stays with them until they find out that she's pregnant. She gets arrested for stealing and crashing a creep's car. Priest Father McCarthy (James Earl Jones) sends her to a shelter run by Kathy (Ann Dowd) with other girls like Cassie (Emily Meade).This is not a subtle movie. Vanessa Hudgens is obviously trying to stretch beyond her pretty looks. I'm of two minds about the effectiveness. While I admire her attempt, she may be trying too hard. The same can be said about Dawson. There are big swings here and I appreciate them. There is a need to structure the drama. It comes off as a rambling narrative. The reveal of the real inspiration helps a little but doesn't fix this central problem. This is a flawed indie with some intriguing swings by the two actresses.

Vanessa Hudgens has certainly come a long way since her days in the family- friendly movies 'High-School Musical'. She is fairly unrecognizable in Ronald Krauss's film 'Gimme Shelter'. It definitely takes some gigantic balls to title your film after one of the best documentaries ever made based on the Rolling Stones, but like that one, this film too is also based on true events. 'Gimme Shelter' is a rough movie to get through, but has a silver lining like a Disney movie. While some of the instances and pieces of dialogue are too "on the nose' for my taste, I expect fans of Hudgens to turn a small profit this January on the indie circuit, if not to just see one of their favorite Disney stars do a role they are not expecting.Hudgens plays 16-year-old Agnes 'Apple' Bailey, who looks like she hasn't showered for fifteen days, and decides at the beginning of the movie to cut her own hair very short. Hey eyes tell a very depressing story as she has spent most of her life moving from foster home to foster home, while constantly being physically and verbally abused by almost every she comes in contact with. But this is not the life she wants, and she makes a conscious decision to move out of that life, but when she tries to move in with her sadistic drug-fueled prostitute mother (Rosario Dawson, best part of the movie), Apple finally realizes she is on her own and sets out to find her father, whom she has never met before.Her father is a very successful Wall-Street executive, played by Brendan Fraser, (who seems to not know why he is in this movie, but) who has a giant house and a new family, as he had Apple when he was in his mid-teens. As you can imagine, things don't mix well when Apple shows up unexpectedly. Apple finds out she is pregnant and her father and step mother immediately take her to an abortion clinic, but after seeing the image of her fetus, she wants to keep it. She gets involved in a car accident and ends up in the hospital, where the hospital chaplain (James Earl Jones) befriends her and sends her to a religious shelter for pregnant teens. Maybe it's here that Apple can find what she has always wanted - a family. At least that is what Krauss wants to tell us.The lady who runs this shelter is named Kathy DiFiore (Ann Dowd), and is in fact a real person, and this film is based on her stories, but she takes the backseat to this movie and it is Hudgens's character Apple who we journey with. The three big flaws with 'Gimme Shelter' is its script, score, and execution. The screenplay just hits you with a hammer too hard in to many places, and never gives you the opportunity to enjoy or figure things out for yourself. And the score is way to dramatic, and comes across way to sappy. This could have been a better film if the director just let these things play out normally, but instead there is way to much emphasis on what we are supposed to feel and when.The acting though is solid throughout. Hudgens gives a brilliant performance of intense anger and rage. But all the while she is just an emotional and scarred child who wants to be loved. Her struggle and performance are great and she has come a long way since 'High School Musical'. I wish James Earl Jones had a meatier role here, but he plays the gentile grandfather just fine. Rosario Dawson is the true star here and plays a horrific mother perfectly. She is truly scary.'Gimme Shelter' is a tough movie to get through, as our main character truly goes through some horrendous moments. This film might be to "on the nose' for me, but it's worth a look. And I can't believe that with its title, the Rolling Stones' song was never heard.

"I'm just asking you for a little time."Vanessa Hudgens' latest film, Gimme Shelter, is based on an inspiring true story in which she plays a pregnant teenager named Apple, who has been abused and felt unwanted all her life. I'm sure the true story is an inspiring one, and I admire Apple's strength to continue fighting despite all the hardships she went through. I also admire those people who took her in and helped her, but just because the real life story is inspiring that doesn't mean I enjoyed this film. The story has several flaws and feels very manipulative. It never felt authentic and I really had a hard time believing Hudgens' performance. An inspirational film should try to be less manipulative and feel more authentic and real, but the characters in this film never felt real. The dialogue in the film was weak and everything felt rushed in such a way that there was no time to delve into what led to some of the characters changes in behaviors. It seemed like director, Ron Krauss, was rushing the story to its feel good ending without really stopping to analyze the pain and hardships Apple went through. These films are usually hard to make and very few are able to succeed in feeling authentic and this wasn't the exception. I wasn't sold by Hudgens' performance and that also hurt my appreciation for the film. It's a film with good intentions and an inspiring tale, but they failed to transmit it in a compelling way.Brendan Fraser plays Apple's father who she has never met because he was only 19 years old when he left her mother, June (played by Rosario Dawson) pregnant. June hasn't been a good mother figure for Apple as she spends her time getting high so Apple has been in and out of shelters and foster care all her life. She has been abused several times, so she finally decides to leave her violent mother and find her dad. She finds him and discovers he's a big shot in Wall Street. Stephanie Szostak plays his wife and together they have two young children. They take Apple in, but have trouble coping with the fact she is pregnant. When they try to convince her to have an abortion, Apple is back in the streets again. After an accident, a nice Priest (James Earl Jones) visits her and convinces her to go to a shelter run by a nun named Kathy (Ann Dowd) who specializes in treating pregnant teenagers. This is where Apple finds a loving family for the first time in her life. The performances in this film were all hurt by the weak script. I didn't understand Fraser's character very well either and the story failed to transmit why he and his wife had a change of heart. Ann Dowd plays a very different character here than the one she does in The Leftovers so it was nice to see her in a much friendlier role. Rosario Dawson was convincing as a junky and abusive mother. There is not much more I can say about this film, it wasn't terrible but it wasn't good either.

Having taught needs category including the following: detention center and alternative schools for juveniles convicted of assault with weapons; homeless dumpster divers; learning & behavioral disorders; severe & profound, I found our girl to be an exaggerated compilation of many problems all made into one person for dramatic effect that I never saw in real life. The overwhelming majority (95+%) of my ss were actually intelligent and for the most part respectful and willing to make some attempts at improvement (yes, a few, at times, would lose it briefly). The movie showcases the help as being Christian without equal acknowledgement to other beliefs or that none should be promoted as part of help. Helping a person does not mean imposing my value system as an underlying subterfuge within that help. The basics of compassion, respect, tolerance, responsibility are not the province of my religion alone. Evangelizing a specific creed is being dishonest towards that person be they Native Peoples, Jew, Buddhist, Hindi, Muslim, atheist or Christian.