On paper, Destin Daniel Cretton’s coming-of-age drama Short Term 12 sounds like a typical Sundance exercise in trembling, low-key earnestness: A troubled social worker (Brie Larson, in a revelatory performance) works through her deeply buried issues and inability to love while counseling a series of troubled group-home kids who desperately yearn for love and connection, but are unwilling to let down their defenses. In actuality, Short Term 12 is something much greater and more lasting: an exquisitely wrought exploration of the troubled psyches of both the staff and the clients of a foster home that radiates compassion and empathy for all of its characters. It’s a deeply humane, ultimately devastating, legitimately tearjerking movie with plenty of acting-friendly moments of high drama and almost unbearably intense emotion. But it’s defined as much by its portrayal of those wonderful, life-affirming in-between times when kids with nothing to do and all day to do it toy with each other, savor rare moments of connection and humor with their peers and mentors, and generally behave like kids, albeit fucked-up kids who have seen more of the ugly side of life than anyone should in a lifetime. —Nathan Rabin
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