The Wackness

Starring Ben Kingsley, Josh Peck, and Olivia Thirlby
Directed by Jonathan Levine
Rated R

Recent high school graduate Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) attends therapy sessions with Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley). At the end of each session, Luke pays his doctor with dime bags of pot. It's a win-win situation; Luke gets the help he seeks and gains a customer, and Dr. Squires gets the high he wants and, for 45 minutes, a friend he needs.

Squires lives a pretty vacant life. He's in a loveless marriage (to Famke Janssen) and he doesn't get along very well with his step-daughter Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby from Juno). Luke, on the other hand, thinks Stephanie hung the moon, and spends the summer of 1994 trying to get closer to her.

He does, of course, but he grows even closer to Dr. Squires, who probably needs the kid more than the kid needs him. But Luke needs someone. His parents don't speak the same language, Stephanie may be his dream girl, but that might be a one-way street, and his most reliable confidant is a shrink who needs to score drugs from a 17-year-old patient. If they had a scene in The Wackness in which Luke and the other characters participated in that trust building exercise where you fall in to the other person's arms, Luke Shapiro would hit the ground every time. However, because of the way he's written, he'd get back up and try again.

Jonathan Levine is the young man most responsible for this film. He's the writer-director and he has created this story the right way, from the characters out, rather than from specific scenes in. Once he establishes who the three main characters are, Levine can take them almost anywhere, because it's the characters that concern us, not New York City in 1994. That's just window dressing, and it's even good window dressing, but it always goes back to the story and in this instance, it's a story about finding a friend, even if you don't keep them around very long.

The performances are all very solid, and as mentioned earlier, the rolling back of the calendars a decade-and-a-half is done quite well. Even in independent film, where you expect to find original storytelling, it can be a mixed bag. Take a look at Smart People from earlier this year. That's one of the worst movies I've seen all year. But The Wackness knows itself and the world it inhabits very well, and it gives us characters worth watching as much for their redeeming qualities as for their faults.