Short Term 12, review - Telegraph Dir: Destin Cretton; Starring: Brie Larson, John Gallagher Jr., Kaitlyn Dever, Stephanie Beatriz, Rami Malek. 15 cert, 97 min. How can you help others to deal with their difficult pasts when you can barely bring yourself to think about your own? That's the question that drives this well-acted and emotionally acute drama about Grace (Brie Larson), an impassioned young woman who works at a residential centre for troubled teenagers, while keeping memories of her own childhood traumas at bay. To her charges, Grace is everything from friend to detective to amateur therapist - and a more useful champion than the pen-pushers and book-balancers notionally running the show. But the arrival of Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever), a pensive teenage girl from a broken home, forces her to reflect on her own long-buried sadness, as does her deepening relationship with Mason (John Gallagher Jr.), a fellow carer. Destin Cretton's film cleaves closely to the American indie-film template, with its preoccupation with broken families and long heart-to-hearts over tall lattes. But its best moments come blazing out at you like miniature fireballs: taciturn Marcus (Keith Stanfield) raps about his abusive mother in a scene that's only three percent as toe-curling as it sounds, and later, Jayden opens up about her relationship with her father through a children's story loaded with covert meaning. This is a walk through familiar territory, but it wins you over step by step.