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The Wackness (2008)

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40 out of 52 people found the following comment useful :-
Kingsley and Peck craft a new classic coming-of-age tale, 14 mars 2008

Author: larry-411 de United States

"The Wackness," director Jonathan Levine's eagerly-awaited followup feature to "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane," premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and was immediately acquired by Sony Pictures Classics. I wasn't able to catch it at the time. Fortunately, "The Wackness" was presented in a special midnight screening not on the official SXSW Film Festival schedule. It was a special treat and quite an unexpected surprise.

"The Wackness" is basically a two-man show, with Ben Kingsley and Josh Peck as psychiatrist Dr. Squires and his patient Luke Shapiro. The twist? One deals drugs and the other takes them. But guess who buys and who sells? And did I mention that Luke not only doles out weed to his doctor but also dates his daughter? Ahh yes...the plot thickens. Yet Squires and Shapiro forge an unlikely friendship not unlike two college buddies -- the boy is just a bit too mature for his age and the man a bit too immature, and they meet at about the same intellectual level.

Penned by director Levine, it's a complex storyline but "The Wackness" is ultimately a character-driven piece. Kingsley's performance is a tour de farce in a daring and risky role unlike anything we've seen -- this ain't your father's Gandhi. Josh Peck, best known as television's Josh of "Josh & Drake" and to indie lovers as George, the tormented victim in "Mean Creek," is the biggest surprise here. He carries this film on his shoulders like a veteran. Olivia Thirlby ("Snow Angels," "Juno") is delightful as the object of Luke's affection.

Production values belie the film's modest budget, especially given the cost of a location period piece -- "The Wackness" is set in New York City 1994. Music of the era naturally provides the backdrop for the duo's drug-dealing days and party nights. Drugs (selling and taking) seem to be ubiquitous in the films I've seen here at SXSW and "The Wackness'" overindulgence can be hard to watch at times. But what could have strayed into a silly variation on "Dazed & Confused" (or the recent "Charlie Bartlett") is, instead, a touching coming-of-age story as relevant today as ever. The fact that the film remains grounded in semi-reality is a tribute to the talents of Kingsley and Peck in the hands of director Jonathan Levine. This director is a force to be reckoned with now that he has "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane" and "The Wackness" under his belt.

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22 out of 30 people found the following comment useful :-
The Wackness > All The Real Girls, 4 juillet 2008

Author: quelindofilms de United States

This might get me into trouble with the film elite, but I found this film so much more real and absorbing than David Gordon Green's "All The Real Girls." They both deal with young men coming of age thanks to first love, but this film has such superior performances and writing. Expertly directed and stacked with some of the best hip hop of the nineties, it's a film that is hilarious, sad and moving, populated with great characters you'll enjoy spending a couple of hours with.

I really wish a film like this had found me in my teenage years, because it's so refreshing and honest. It's nice to watch a movie that celebrates the time honored art of owning and embracing the pain that makes you who you are.

People whine and bitch about the glut of hollow Hollywood formula flooding the marketplace, but a great little film like The Wackness with a strong voice is not getting the support it deserves.

The entire theater loved it, as did my friends I brought along who knew nothing about it.

Do yourself a favor and go see The Wackness. You won't be disappointed.

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12 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
A dopey Jewish boy pseudo gangsta with a nerdy sweet smile, 19 juillet 2008

Author: Chris Knipp de Berkeley, California

The success of 'The Wackness' is fragile. If you can hear that phrase right--the wackness, the movie will probably work for you. That's enough: the wackness. It almost feels like writing about it will crush it. Things don't seem to fly at first. Here we are. Okay, there's this high-school graduate called Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck). He lives on the Upper East Side of NYC but his father's had an economic disaster and they're threatened with banishment to New Jersey. The older generation's approaching meltdown and the youngsters are about to move on.

Much about 'The Wackness' sounds routine. The coming-of-age story, the nerdy kid who wins over the cute girl, the constantly feuding parents, the offbeat shrink sessions, the nostalgia for a period recently gone. Why does it work? The simple answer: Josh Peck, who plays the young man, Luke Shapiro. Peck, who's tall and a bit chubby (he was a flat-out fat boy in Mean Creek and the TV kid comedy series "Drake & Josh"), wonderfully steers along on the edge between nerdy and cool and the result is irresistibly charming. However self-conscious Luke's lines may be at times, Peck's timing and delivery turn them into gold. Luke's relationship with the messed-up shrink Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley), who trades him therapy for good bud, is endearing too, but Squires is close enough to being a real mess so it's not too cute.

It's the summer of 1994 in hiphop graffiti New York just at the moment when Mayor Giuliani came to wipe out "quality of life crimes" and drain the sleaze and the color out of Times Square. Probably the writer-director (Jonathan Levine) was this age then. Words like "dope" and "wack" and "yo" and "what up" fly through the air with abandon. The movie pushes the same slang words too hard, and mentions Giuliani more than it needs to. And what's with "mad"? Did they really say that? "You're mad out of my league." "I got mad love for you shorty. I want to listen to Boyz2men when I'm with you," says Luke to Stephanie (Olivia Thrilby). (They trade mix tapes.) It's a heat wave, so he says "It's mad hot." The dialog is mad free with "mad." Accurate or not, the New York-Nineties references are a bit more constant and self-conscious than they need to be.

At first some of the more prominently noticeable visual business also seems over-the-top: a teenager selling masses of weed out of a decrepit ice cream cart and trading it for therapy; the shrink's giant glass bong which he lights up in his office during a session.

But, whatever, as the blasé Stephanie would say. It still works, because the main characters are endearing and their dilemmas are true to life.

The thing is, Luke needs to get laid. Squires offers a hooker, not pills, for this issue. The doctor himself takes a kaleidoscope of antidepressants to cope with being a fuckup and having a sexy young wife (Famke Janssen) on the verge of leaving him. The solution of Luke's problem turns out to be convoluted because Stephanie, who accepts to hang out with him and then teaches him to make love, is Squires' own step-daughter. That's tricky for Squires. He has problems of his own. He has one big one: he's afraid life is passing him by. No obvious role model though a pal to Luke, he's such a mess he lusts after teenage girls himself, and smooches with Mary-Kate Olsen in a phone booth. This, by the way, was the day when drug dealers still used pagers and pay phones. And even if the Giuliani theme is pushed as are the "what up's," nonetheless Squires' dishevelment and Luke's selling drugs out of a cart are logical figments of the fading pre-Giuliani New York, and that fading sleaze is like the fading of Luke's virginity as his "nasty thoughts," which he says he enjoys, yield to real experiences of sex and to the pain of falling in love when it's not returned.

By now it may be redundant to say it, but Josh Peck makes Luke's mixture of vulnerability and bravado, very real. The plot turns out to be not so much clichéd as simple and true. When Luke's heart gets broken, it really hurts to watch it. Though the drug distributors Luke gets his marijuana from--and he sells many large bricks of it that summer in hopes of saving his parents' apartment--are conventionally high-powered guys with machine-guns and Jamaican accents, ninety percent of the time Levine keeps his story low-keyed and doesn't strain for effects. And he doesn't need those, because Josh Peck's and Ben Kingsley's line readings sing out enough to make any movie memorable.

As one blogger puts it, Luke's "kind of dopey pseudo-gangsta, but nerdishly sweet smile managed to convey both the character's pretense and genuine good nature." All the English Peck puts on his lines reflects his character's efforts to strike a pose, but the "nerdishly sweet smile" instantly undercuts the poses and makes them endearing. He's functional enough. Stephanie has taken some small interest in him, enough to want to hang out despite her having been "mad out of my league" in high school. And he must have got dealing dope down if he can make $26,000 in some heavy weeks of the summer. But he's in need of an attitude adjustment. This is how Stephanie puts it: "I see the dopeness; you only see the wackness." He's been faking it and now he needs to make it. He needs to love life. And suffer pain. And she gives him both opportunities. This is pretty well how the world is for a young dude. When it hurts to watch Luke suffer, it hurts in a good way.

P.s. Jane Adams is mad fly as Elanor, an ex-musician pothead. Her ingenious excuses for constantly scoring weed are as good as anything in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest.

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11 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
Left Me Feeling Quite Melancholy, but Satisfied, 6 juillet 2008

Author: ericjams de United States

The Wackness is an extremely difficult movie to figure out. On one hand, writer/director Jon Levine paints a captivating story around the friendship of two identifiable protagonists in depressed teenage drug dealer Luke Shapiro, played by an up-to-the-task Josh Peck, and eccentric shrink, Dr. Squires, played by a barely up to the task Ben Kingsley. On the other hand, the script itself struggles to find a tone largely fumbling the 1994 NYC setting and ultimately dabbling with dark comedy, philosophy 101, and drug/party filled 90s teenage musings without really nailing down any thematic voice. The movie does succeed in escaping its hazy plot lines and sophomoric personalities with several great one-liners, some decent character development, and a conclusion that left me satisfied but nevertheless a bit sad --which is not a bad thing. Of the 80% filled NYC theater I saw it in, 10 people walked out, the rest applauded at the end. Its that kind of movie.

One of the biggest problems with the movie is its failure to use the 1994 New York City setting to its fullest. As a product of this time and place I felt cheated because Mr. Levine chooses to exploit tid-bits of the culture without ever really showing any substance. We hear references to Kurt Cobain and Phish, we see Luke playing Nintendo NES, we hear a good selection of Biggie, Wu-Tang Clan, and Tribe Called Quest and several references to the Guliani gestapo police, but Levine failed to create a teenage period piece to rival Dazed and Confused, Kids, or Mallrats to name a few more recent ones. The cinematography is good, and adds a vintage type feel to the NYC background, but as a cultural snapshot of a time in NYC history, this movie falls flat.

However, Levine was perhaps preoccupied with a greater goal than a period piece. Shapiro and Dr. Squires are not easy characters to support. Shapiro is a bulk sales weed dealer, with no friends, and a stunted sex life. I think many people will be able to relate to him either directly or indirectly and will enjoy following his teenage "coming of age" tribulations as I did. Kingsley, as Squires, has a tough role and at times plays the stoner shrink as though he has early onset Alzheimer's disease. Its not an easy role, his character is a walking contradiction who mixes decent psychological advice with occasional moments of idiocy. At times he nails it down, at others he comes across as the drunk uncle at Thanksgiving dinner that we are all a bit embarrassed for, but this was probably Levine's intention. Amidst writing that ebbed and flowed at a mediocre level, the dialog between Shapiro and Squires had some knock outs and worked its way up to a satisfying conclusion. The peripheral characters perform admirably when asked, except for Famke Jannsen who failed to show up for her role as Squires' numb to life wife.

If you have ever turned to the recreational consumption of drugs or any other vice as an escape from life or to just 'deal' with life, you will find both Shapiro and Squires much much much more sympathetic and in some ways touching characters. The story of the young Shapiro and old Squires blends the themes of 'soothing your growing pains through drugs (mostly marijuana)' versus the 'trying to go back to your youth and escape your adulthood' through drugs. People who can appreciate or relate to such plot lines will find this movie much more touching than those who cant.

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10 out of 15 people found the following comment useful :-
A lovely film, 7 juillet 2008

Author: InterLNK de Toronto, Canada

I walked into this film with 0 expectations having received pre-screener passes from a local record store. This is a beautifully filmed true to life story which I felt held very deep meaning about the beauty that is the start and end of relationships. We follow the summer of two very different men in who are in very similar mindsets dealing with the personal crises, quiet pleasures, new experiences, and endless repetition that is life. This is a realistic and philosophical film that the label "comedy" does not do justice, but there are steady laughs throughout the film, especially for those of us who grew up in the 1990s. Only let-down was Mary-Kate Olsen, who I simply couldn't buy in her role, fortunately, it's a very small part.

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12 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
wonderful. . . a must see. . . and, to quote my mother, "extraordinary", 6 juillet 2008

Author: Jimi Sunshine de Nunaurbisnis

This film was everything a movie should be. Great direction, acting, writing, and everything else! The acting was superb. Josh Peck really showed that not only is he a wonderful comical actor, but he is an incredible dramatic actor, as well. He was just perfect in this role, and he was able to carry the film with ease. Hopefully we will be seeing a whole lot more of this actor, for he has given the breakthrough performance of the year. Ben Kingsly was, as usual, great. He provides a comical character and creates a character so entertaining, you can't help but smile once he appears on screen. Olivia Thirlby worked very well as Peck's love interest, and Mary-Kate Olsen showed that she has the potential to break away from her child star mold and start a promising film career.

And while some reviews expressed that the use of 1994 (the year the film takes place in) and all the references to that time were annoying, I found them quite funny and enjoyed such references as mentions of a 90210 episode that I recently watched!

The story of a drug-dealing teen's relationship with his shrink/client and his relationship with the shrink's daughter is a truly enthralling one. It felt much shorter than is was and I hope to see it again soon! I loved everything about this film and hope that it becomes the independent film that makes it big this year, just as Juno did last year! It definitely deserves high praise!

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Talented director churns out uninspired 90s soaper, 3 août 2008

Author: Turfseer de United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

One day Hollywood will call Jonathan Levine and ask him to direct a big budget film not based on his skills as a screenplay writer but as a director. For a first effort one must be impressed by Levine's skill at directing actors as well as working with the cinematographer. The Wackness has some beautiful visual scenes. But as a writer Levine has churned out but another typical Indie flick that will probably win a lot of awards at the film festivals but won't impress more sophisticated critics. Levine's coming of age tale is set in 1994. He sets the story in that time period in order to pad his soundtrack with various hip hop songs that were coming out at that time. Actually the story could have been set in the present and all the references to that time period seem self-conscious. Levine's characters are flat, bordering on one-dimensional. For the most part, they don't like themselves. The protagonist, Luke Shapiro, is continually seeing his mentor, a psychiatrist played by Ben Kingsley, and admitting that he is unhappy. Kingsley's character, Dr. Squires, is also unhappy, trapped in a loveless marriage. Sad sack characters are good for soap operas but do not make for good drama. Levine should have taken a cue from 'The Sopranos' and modeled his shrink on the very believable and confident 'Dr. Melfi'. Instead, Dr. Squires is a loser who trades therapy sessions for marijuana which Luke provides him with. Even less thought out are the supporting characters such as Luke's father who has managed to get the family evicted due to some unexplained business dealings. Similarly, Dr. Squire's wife spends her time bemoaning her poor relationship with the goofy doctor. That relationship is also never explored. Luke spends a good deal of time walking around the neighborhood pushing an ice cream cart loaded with marijuana. He does get arrested at one point but surprisingly not for selling marijuana (actually it's for making graffiti along with his unstable mentor, Dr. Squires). The main part of the story involves Luke's romance with Stephanie, Squires's step-daughter, convincingly played by Oliva Thirlby. She has the best part in the script, playing a cynical and amoral vixen who beds Luke and then discards him for the next heavier player that comes along. There are no surprises at the end of 'The Wackness'. Luke takes his lumps and heads for college, older but wiser. He manages to also set up Dr. Squires with an acquaintance who the writer hints will be a stabilizing influence on him in the future. Despite all the clichés, Levine is a director who I am certain will go on to take on more challenging projects in the future.

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7 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
A Drug Dealer is "God's Lonely Boy", 14 juillet 2008

Author: madbandit20002000 de Queens, New York, USA

The coming-of-age genre has been a welcome staple in cinema from the classic monolith "Rebel Without A Cause" to the recent uber-smash "Juno", whose young protagonists are fraught with having old souls while trying to make a place in the world, despite pressure and apathy from their peers and parents.

One newcomer is high school grad Luke Shapiro, played with urban wisdom and smooth shyness by NYC native Josh Peck, in Jonathan Levine's funky yet poignant film, "The Wackness". In New York City, during the summer of 1994, then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani (before his shameless, self-adoration after the Sept 11 attacks; the WTC towers make a haunting CGI appearance here) waged a no-nonsense war against quality of life crimes so tourists wouldn't gag while seeing homelessness, public inebriation, prostitution or drug trafficking. Phoniness: a religion of the moron.

His parents strapped for cash (due to his dad's badly thought-out, "get rich quick" schemes), Shapiro slyly flips the bird at the system by selling marijuana out of a beaten up ice cream cart, with a boom box (that's an over-sized radio/cassette player to you tadpoles) attached to it, playing the likes of rap acts like A Tribe Called Quest, Biggie Smalls and DJ Jazzy Jeff and Will "The Fresh Prince" Smith. Great idea, but since when did drug dealers, aside from Frank Lucas from "American Gangster", ever had great ideas? Ergo, Luke's a lone wolf, ever since school. A subtle, near-silent applause is given when he gets his diploma. He sits over an awning, looking down at the partiers at a post-graduation soiree he wasn't invited to, but asked to supply the weed. If you know how he feels, don't be ashamed to cry. I know I did.

Fortunately, Luke's best client is his shrink, Jeff Squires (a madcap, mercurial Sir Ben Kingsley, who should get Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actor), who gives him dubious advice ("Get laid") while taking a quarter of grass as payment. However, Squires doesn't take well to Luke's infatuation with his step-daughter, the high class Stephanie ("Juno's" Olivia Thirlby, also a NYC native). Sometimes, first loves aren't the best ones.

If you think the film's about a Jewish kid immersing himself in hip-hop culture, you're so wrong. An audience award winner at both the Sundance and Los Angeles film festivals, "The Wackness", an earnest attempt to adapt "Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger, is the first coming of age piece that reminiscently focuses on the 1990s, making refs to "Beverly Hills 90210", the late rocker Kurt Cobain, the pulsating (and better) rap music and Giuliani's near-fascistic and racist mayoral reign (like me, a NYC resident, Squires sees it as a basic and pathetic hiding of the symptoms of society's ills). Graffiti font is made as opening credits, respected by Levine, whose script is alive (also should get nominated) and direction is competent cool and quick in a drug-like haze.

His actors are reliable, like Mary-Kate Olsen as a squirrel-brain, hippie chick, rapper Method Man as Luke's Caribbean-accented boss, Famke Janseen (the X-Men trilogy) as Squires's frigid trophy wife and David Wohl and Talia Balsam as Luke's bickering parents. Even Jane Adams is pretty cool as a one-hit musician-cum-stoner. Personally, the film's narrative is an attractive, alternative version of my own of trial by fire.

That comes down to Peck, a grad from the tween sitcom "Drake and Josh", who perfectly echoes Robert DeNiro and John Cusack from their lead roles in "Taxi Driver" (Mr. Levine was the assistant of the film's writer Paul Schrader) and "Say Anything". Sure, Luke's cool beyond cool, but he's an old man in a young man's body, a mirror image to Kingsley's Squires, who has trouble in his marriage. Thirbly, as Stephanie, nicely reps fear behind careless hedonism: When Luke's honest about his feelings for her, during a rendezvous on Fire Island, she finds it holographic, not noticing she's talking about herself while being with "God's lonely boy."

With its' drug use, urban vibe and stark individualism, I don't know if "The Wackness" will be 2008's "Juno" (IT COULD!!!), but I do know it's a honest film.

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20 out of 37 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the best this year, 6 mai 2008

Author: x-eric de United States

On Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 I was able to attend the west coast premiere of "The Wackness" at the Sundance Kabuki Cinemas in San Francisco. I had paid $150 just so me and my two friends could see it and it was money well spent. The movie grabs you from the start and doesn't let up until it ends.

set in New York 1994 it is a story about a troubled drug dealer Luke Shapiro(played excellently by Josh Peck) who has struck a deal with his therapist Dr.Squires(Ben Kingsley in one of his best performances in many years) in which he will trade him weed in exchange for sessions. Along the way he falls for Dr.Squires' step-daughter Stephanie(played by the extremely talented Olivia Thirlby).

What makes this movie so great is it's focus on the characters. No character is perfect. Each has a set of his or her own flaws. Each character is written well and not just a simple stereotype. Each actor feels like they were meant for the role they were given. Ben Kingsley and Josh Peck create some of the best scenes in movie history. Olivia Thirlby has demonstrated range from JUNO to SNOW ANGELS to this. She took what could have been a one-dimensional character into something magnificent. She is a great actress who I hope to keep on seeing in the future.

It also featured a good selection of songs from 1994 that help the flow of this movie.

I have not cried at a movie in years. But I cried during this. It is a beautiful coming of age tale that quite a few people can relate to. Johnathan Levine, who directed this masterpiece, has a bright future ahead of him. He is talented and and makes this movie sincere. This movie is a well-written piece of cinematic heaven. I hope it can find it's audience when it is released to theaters.

Also I hope they release an extended version or at least the deleted scenes with the DVD as the director told the audience that there was about 40 minutes of cut out from the finished product.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Far from wackness., 3 août 2008

Author: come2whereimfrom de United Kingdom

From Luke's opening monologue set to the strains of old school hip-hop through to a beautifully crafted story that is both poignant and funny and Ben Kingsley's wonderful turn as psychiatrist Dr. Squires this film is a winner. Set in New York in 1994 the story follows Luke Shapiro as he graduates school and becomes a dope dealer full time. It's a coming of age drama of sorts but equally as he is struggling to come to terms with embarking on life after school, parents, peer pressure and girls his psychiatrist Dr. Squires, who he deals to in exchange for counselling, is also coming to terms with growing old, a failing marriage and drug dependency. The two form an unlikely bond, Luke is in love with Dr. Squires step daughter and Dr .Squires wants to recapture his lost youth which opens the way for some charming and damn funny moments. Kingsley plays the good doctor like a cross between 'The Big Lebowski's' the dude and a drug addled Terry Nutkins, it's a great role and another that shows just how versatile he is as an actor. Luke is played by local boy Josh Peck and as well as being a perfect foil for Kingsley he is also great in his own right, very reminiscent of the lead from Thumbsucker all floppy haired and wide eyed. The music mostly nineties hip-hop, like A Tribe Called Quest and Notorious B.i.g to name but a few is balanced with classic rock as the two now friends swap mix tapes. Well paced and effortless in its execution this should be as big as say 'Juno' but due to its content and drug references it probably won't be, but don't let that put you off seeing this great little film.

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