The Wackness mixes nostalgia for... jeez, was it 14 years ago (?) and some 'coming-of-age' elements that feel and look as they are: what we've seen before, particularly with 17/18 year old dudes. It's not a great movie, and yet that said I could see myself watching this movie on the likes of IFC or Sundance channel another few times or whenever it's on by chance. It would be hard to say why I connected so much to the setting and character, which is a credit to the sophomore effort of director Jonathan Levine; this is a time that I knew about, however younger I was, and the 'change' in the air of NYC 94 and the (good) rap and hip-hop of Biggie Smalls and Tribe Called Quest, and young, fumbling-for-it love and lust. Even just seeing an original Nintendo Zelda game being played got my eyes opened to how right Levine gets how to do this; it's like the less-strident and message-laden (if not as overall mind-blowingly naturalistic) version of Clark's Kids.
But this isn't the only ingredient to The Wackness being a good, refreshing movie experience; Ben Kingsley and the young Josh Peck are cast impeccably (and the former surprisingly) as a midlife-crisis psychiatrist who gets pot from his teenager pot-dealing rap fan, respectively, and bond over the course of the summer Peck is between high school and college. Shapiro (Peck) also is infatuation with Stephanie (Thirlby), who is Kingsley's step-daughter, which is the only no-no in his otherwise care-free and immature outlook and behavior about things. In terms of plot things happen mostly on the relationship front of things, with Shapiro and Stephanie getting closer but then more apart, and Kingsley with his wife (Famke Jensen) and their detachment.
It could be rote material, but there's so much humor and laughs to be had at a lot of things and it's mostly due to Levine's handling of the strange situations that Kingsley gets into and how he acts through it. It might be one of Kingsley's best performances in this decade, and playing off Peck- who does an excellent job balancing between super cool and super vulnerable "first-time-in-love" type- it's some of the best stuff in the movie.
Although Levine sometimes makes things a little too easy or fundamental, and at one point towards the end hits the nail too hard on the head with pointing out the significance of a first-time-experiencing kind of thing, I could almost forgive it for what does work so well. His direction is hip and off-beat, meant to capture that time and place and to have some attitude in the process, while also not forgetting that amid the more personal and serious things in the story (i.e. Shapiro's family troubles, Stephanie's "boredom") there's some space for crazy bits of humor and visual panache. This might be the only movie you'll ever see where a Spike Lee-inspired fast-speed-first-person sprint around the city streets is led by a middle finger pointed at whatever and whoever. Did I mention it also features Method Man and Mary-Kate Olsen? 7.5/10
But this isn't the only ingredient to The Wackness being a good, refreshing movie experience; Ben Kingsley and the young Josh Peck are cast impeccably (and the former surprisingly) as a midlife-crisis psychiatrist who gets pot from his teenager pot-dealing rap fan, respectively, and bond over the course of the summer Peck is between high school and college. Shapiro (Peck) also is infatuation with Stephanie (Thirlby), who is Kingsley's step-daughter, which is the only no-no in his otherwise care-free and immature outlook and behavior about things. In terms of plot things happen mostly on the relationship front of things, with Shapiro and Stephanie getting closer but then more apart, and Kingsley with his wife (Famke Jensen) and their detachment.
It could be rote material, but there's so much humor and laughs to be had at a lot of things and it's mostly due to Levine's handling of the strange situations that Kingsley gets into and how he acts through it. It might be one of Kingsley's best performances in this decade, and playing off Peck- who does an excellent job balancing between super cool and super vulnerable "first-time-in-love" type- it's some of the best stuff in the movie.
Although Levine sometimes makes things a little too easy or fundamental, and at one point towards the end hits the nail too hard on the head with pointing out the significance of a first-time-experiencing kind of thing, I could almost forgive it for what does work so well. His direction is hip and off-beat, meant to capture that time and place and to have some attitude in the process, while also not forgetting that amid the more personal and serious things in the story (i.e. Shapiro's family troubles, Stephanie's "boredom") there's some space for crazy bits of humor and visual panache. This might be the only movie you'll ever see where a Spike Lee-inspired fast-speed-first-person sprint around the city streets is led by a middle finger pointed at whatever and whoever. Did I mention it also features Method Man and Mary-Kate Olsen? 7.5/10