Parents' Guide to

Keith

By Tracy Moore, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 15+

Teen terminal-illness romance has sexuality, heavy themes.

Movie PG-13 2009 95 minutes
Keith Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 15+

Based on 4 parent reviews

age 12+

Not bad.

I enjoyed it. Rated pg-13 although one f word was in the film Jesse McCarthy did a good job my first Jesse McCarthy movie I approve.

This title has:

Great messages
age 12+

Not bad.

I enjoyed it. Rated pg-13 although one f word was in the film Jesse McCarthy did a good job my first Jesse McCarthy movie I approve.

This title has:

Great messages

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (4):
Kids say (1):

KEITH often resembles an old screwball comedy in its characters and their chemistry. There's a wise-cracking tough guy and a feisty woman paired together who hate each other at first, then slowly thaw into each other's arms over 95 minutes with increasingly erratic behavior. Only this is a movie set in high school about a kid who has terminal cancer. But since you don't know that for the first 90 minutes of the film, the actions make more sense. Still, it's sometimes hard to see the bigger message, if there is one. Love is crazy? Dying is the best exemption to chemistry lab? Though consequences are shown for some of these choices, none of the characters seems to care too much.

For that reason, the frank discussions of sex, the mature handling of loss of virginity, and the fairly casual attitudes about partying, underage drinking, and getting away for the weekend without parents may ring a bit too mature for younger teens who aren't ready for vaguer messages about the purpose of life. But for an older teenager, there may be some enjoyment here in a terminal-illness romance that trades the usual cliquish teen concerns for a whirlwind, offbeat pairing.

Movie Details

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