AUSTIN, Texas, March 17, (RTRS):  It takes either courage or ignorance for a first-time director to tell the kind of story John Hughes, Richard Linklater, Judd Apatow and George Lucas have already done so well, but David Robert Mitchell nearly pulls it off in “The Myth of the American Sleepover.” So many filmmakers have depicted an endless night of teenage debauchery and self-discovery that an “Airplane!”-like spoof is probably in development. “Sixteen Candles,” “Dazed and Confused,” “Superbad” and “American Graffiti” have already gone there, not to mention “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” and “Go.” And yet Mitchell still manages to plant a flag on this well-trodden territory by steering more toward drama than comedy, though he scores points on both fronts. Where he exceeds those films are sensual visuals that recapture summertime adolescence in all its vivacity.

“Sleepover” tells four stories that play out among a sprawling ensemble of teens. As in “Dazed,” their world is split between dewy-eyed freshmen and decadent upperclassmen who may be separated by just a few years chronologically, but eons in terms of worldliness.
Eager to transcend that gulf is Maggie (Claire Sloma), who skips out on the all-girls sleepover she was invited to attend in favor or chasing some older boys at a party. Taking her place at the sleepover is Claudia (Amanda Bauer), the new girl in town who attracts the attention of her host’s boyfriend.
Rob (Marlon Morton) spends the night in search of a blonde siren with whom he becomes infatuated after a chance encounter at the grocery. On a similar trajectory is Scott (Brett Jacobsen), a college junior who seeks to dull the pain of getting dumped by a girlfriend by going to elaborate lengths to pursue twins (Nikita and Jade Ramsey).

Mitchell nails the blustery display of cursing and smoking many teens affect to mask their immaturity. In one of the film’s funniest moments, a girl who brings marijuana to the sleepover loses serious street cred when she starts laying the seeds out on a mirror as if she was snorting cocaine.
The story lines are slight but “Sleepover” operates best on a sense-memory level, anyway. Mitchell conveys all this sexual anxiety and yearning in an artful jumble of tawny limbs and peachfuzz. If his camera lingered any longer on all that pubescent skin, we’d be headed for Larry Clark territory.
The odd but endearing thing about “Sleepover” is that real teens probably won’t recognize themselves in these characters; there’s such an absence of cultural signposts in the film — no texting or slang — that its story could just as easily be taking place 30 years ago.

“Sleepover” is set in Detroit, not that you could tell, either. It’s as if Mitchell’s intention was to capture Anywhere, USA, circa Anytime, to give “Sleepover” a fever-dream quality.
Occasionally, one of “Sleepover’s” characters emerge from their hormonal fog to speechify on the predicament that is teenhood in a way that’s pure Hughes. If there’s a Molly Ringwald equivalent for Mitchell, it’s Sloma, an enchanting pixie who dazzles in all the right places.
“Sleeper” is less a fully realized artistic expression than an able reworking of a well-worn genre. Still, it may be just a matter of time before Mitchell finds the right distance from his influences to find his own vision.