All That Glitters Review: Drugs, Dreams & Discovery

All That Glitters takes the slice-of-life approach to schoolyard storytelling, fusing underground drug culture with coming-of-age drama to uneven effect.

All That Glitters, the feature-length debut of writer-director Noah Meister, is a cautionary coming-of-age tale that explores the dark underbelly of teenage education through the lens of modern drug culture, and how the allure of money and status can have unexpected consequences. Christopher (Jack Welshons), our lead, is a distracted student with sliding grades. Outside of school hours, he works a part-time job slinging burgers at a fast food joint called Burger World, suffering the indignity of belligerent customers while the hours slowly slip by.

However, his life suddenly becomes more exciting one night, as a mix-up with takeout bags leads to Christopher mistakenly taking home a large brick of cocaine, while local drug dealer Dominic (Aaron Harris) is left exasperated that his product has gone missing. Christopher enlists classmate Mack (Monterio Caldwell) to help him move the drugs, while Dominic desperately attempts to track down his missing goods. Selling the cocaine is easier said than done though, and Christopher quickly finds himself in over his head as he tries to make a sale during a house party while the threat of violence looms.

Much of All That Glitters is predicated on authentic teenage interaction and most of the dialogue reflects that. Not every conversation is perfectly refined, though, and the movie isn’t immune from overacting or the occasional stilted line delivery, but the characters mostly feel genuine.They make mistakes as they try to shift an extreme amount of product without any consideration for the consequences, and that’s highly symptomatic of the teenage experience.

Meister’s direction is less-than-dynamic, but the almost hazy, slightly oversaturated aesthetic choice that is often employed provides the film with stylistic depth, creating an almost dreamlike quality as we witness the escalating proceedings. During the third act, which is almost entirely staged within the aforementioned house party, the use of vibrant colours and lens flares further compound the feeling that the characters are slipping blindly into a world unknown to them, and the effective synth score helps to set that tone throughout.

All That Glitters was concocted as a slice-of-life piece that examines one specific teenage experience, and as such it’s both light on plot and character depth, but the technical proficiency of the film suggests that Meister wants to do more than simply set up and shoot. There’s a distinctive visual style in place, and although the actual content of the film doesn’t offer up much for an audience to chew on, the economic pacing and the commitment to expressive visual storytelling hints at bigger and better things to come.

All That Glitters is now available to stream on Green Apple Entertainment.