‘Middletown’ Movie Review [Sundance 2025]: 90s High School Journalism On Corruption Remains Urgent

Photo from Sandra Phipps

From Jeff Nelson

The power of journalism is rarely explored in cinema at the local level. Progress comes in small steps, frequently echoing between different industrial scopes. Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss delve into 1990s-era amateur journalism and its lasting impact on a community, viewed through a riveting and commanding present-day lens. Middletown is a documentary implementing the hands-on teaching method that forever changed its subjects’ lives.

Upstate New York teacher Fred Isseks inspired a group of teenagers in the 1990s to make a student film that uncovered a conspiracy poisoning their community. Thirty years later, they reunite to revisit the experience and discuss how this pivotal moment transformed them.

Middletown branches from a non-linear structure that bounces between the past and present to put action and consequence into direct conversation with one another. Isseks’ unconventional approach to education worked for this group of misfits frequently alienated from traditional class structures. He called the extracurricular course “Electronic English,” which allowed hands-on learning to bring out creativity and innovative thinking. The resulting student roster is an eclectic mix of high school cliques that nobody would expect to see willingly in the same room together. In the present day, these adults laugh, cringe, and reflect on these recorded memories that range from silly adolescent antics to serious journalism.

Isseks’ class grew into a newsroom of sorts, where the students were thrilled to go into the field to capture footage and interview people. The deeper they dug, the more shocking their findings became. The story unravels in a way you’d expect from a fictional crime movie, but it never abandons its documentary foundation. Isseks succeeded in his goal of transforming the students from consumers to creators – to think for themselves, rather than passively accept media images as they were. They became active members of the community, passionate about their futures and fighting to ensure there would be a future to protect. It’s inspiring and engaging.

McBaine and Moss primarily confine the scope to the journalistic efforts, highlighting footage that shows figures in power squirming from unexpectedly pointed questions posed by unassuming teenagers. Conversely, they also show how their lack of experience steers certain interviews. The corruption is explained, although its impact is hardly explored. As adults, they recall their fervor for documenting the truth, but they aren’t probed about the full extent of how the pressure impacted them.

The compelling group of players holds Middletown together but loses some of its steam as it peels back the layers of corruption. The adult and teenaged versions of these subjects are chock full of personality, morphing this story of activism into more than a list of events. What gives this documentary an extra edge is how this unlikely group looks back on how teen angst was channeled into making a difference.

Rating: 3.5/5

Middletown played Sundance 2025 on January 28th, 2025.

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