The Wackness and Smart People

A couple of indie films today:

First we have The Wackness, the winner of the Dramatic Audience Award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. I have to admit, at first I was a little apprehensive going into this movie. The premise sounded good but I hated the first trailer I saw - coming in at a short 90 seconds, this first preview had played up the young cast and the hip hop soundtrack and downplayed the storyline. Luckily, the movie itself was much better.
Totally deserving of its Audience Award win, The Wackness isn't a perfect coming-of-age picture, nor does it want to be. It is completely content with hanging out and telling its story, presenting its characters, and just being who it is. That kind of confidence is reassuring, and goes a long way towards an audience enjoying a movie.

It's a small film, with basically only three main roles to speak of. Each of them is cast to perfection. Josh Peck (a revelation in 2004's Mean Creek) plays Luke, a pot-dealing 18-year-old rap enthusiast, living in 1994 New York City, pondering his existence after graduating high school. His mentor is his therapist, Dr. Squires (amazingly rendered by Ben Kingsley). He's a successful psychologist, but he's also an immature drug addict whose marriage is failing. Things get complicated when Luke falls for Squires' daughter, Stephanie (Juno's Olivia Thirlby). Other people show up in supporting roles, including the great Jane Adams (Happiness) as one of Luke's pot-buyers.
There's so much about this movie that could have gone horribly wrong. The vintage 90's rap music could feel overly campy, almost veering towards novelty, but the careful choice of music and the discussion of it by characters - in context with their lives - makes it work. The whole teenage pot dealer thing has been done before, but this movie puts a nice little spin on it: it's almost like an afterthought. Although this activity is used as a plot device to put things in motion, it's not the central driving force in the film. There's no big moral drug choice for the kid to make at the end of the film, and there's no violent acts or consequences that result from his selling of pot. In fact, the guy who sells it to him (effectively his boss) is one of his closest confidants. It's refreshing, and allows us to pay attention to what really matters in the film: the relationships, whether they be parent and child, husband and wife, or the man focus of the piece, the budding romance between Luke and Stephanie.
This particular aspect of the film is handled quite well, particularly the sex scenes between the two young actors. Everything is given the right amount of awkwardness, eagerness and melancholy, and it's one of the most affecting aspects of the film.
Okay, enough rambling. This is a good film. If it was received a little bit better (it was given highly mixed reviews, although they mostly aired on the positive side), I might've predicted an Oscar nomination for Ben Kingsley. His role has that great mix of vitality and compassion that the Academy loves. Josh Peck is great in the lead, though, and holds the whole thing together. After Mean Creek, I knew this kid was going places. He might not get a lot of attention for this, but I'm sure his breakthrough role isn't far off. This is a memorable movie, and although it sort of fizzles out in its last fifteen minutes, it redeems itself with a great ending. Highly recommended.


Smart People is another independent film with mixed reviews, but in this case I think the critics were right on the money. It has a great opening, which quickly and neatly establishes a tone for the picture, but it's all sort of downhill after that. The movie's dialogue does a good job of maintaining that tone, but someone along the way didn't think so. There is way too much music in this movie. Don't get me wrong, I love music in film, when it's done right. But I have a big problem with snippets of different songs being used as background for what seemed like every other dialogue scene. In one five-minute section of the film I counted no less than four different songs. It reminds me of what the WB network does with its teen-oriented shows; they throw music in at every possible moment because they are deathly afraid that people will get bored. Twenty seconds of a quiet conversation is an eternity in their eyes. The movie never gets a chance to breathe, which is unfortunate, because there is some great dialogue in there between the many, many songs. I have no idea whether this was the director or the studio's choice, but, quite frankly, it bugged the hell out of me.

The cast is great, anyway: Dennis Quaid, Thomas Haden Church, Ellen Page, and Ashton Holmes (A History of Violence). Even Sarah Jessica Parker, who I personally can't stand, is decent in this. Everyone's well-cast, especially Thomas Haden Church as the irresponsible brother. It's worth a watch, but don't worry about going out of your way to see it.