The Wackness

Now Showing

In Cinemas 29/08/08

Director: Jonathan Levine

Stars: Ben Kingsley, Josh Peck, Famke Janssen, Olivia Thirlby, Mary-Kate Olsen

Year: 2008 Running Time: 95 mins Rating:

It's the long hot summer of 1994 and high school loner and pot entrepreneur Luke (Peck) is having trouble with arguing parents, the threat of eviction, Giuliani’s changing NYC, and the pains of orbiting his school’s social elite. Finding a soulmate in mid-life crisis psychiatrist Dr Squires (Kingsley), Luke exchanges pot for shrink sessions, and the two use that most noble of pursuits - the booty quest - to see them through life’s pitfalls. But things get complicated when Luke falls for Squires’ stepdaughter, Steph (Thirlby). Wise, sensitive, and laugh-out-loud funny, The Wackness proves that nothing bridges the generation gap like worry and weed.

Review

Writer / director Jonathan Levine likes living in the past.

His feature debut, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, was updated early 80s grindhouse horror, and for The Wackness he journeys back to longer-ago-than-you-think 1994. The “greatest year in hip-hop history”, no less.

For audiences who would rather rake out their eyes than watch a Harold and Kumar stoner flick, The Wackness offers more than fuzzy giggles and bongwater-weak characters, setting up its stall beside indie successes Juno, Rushmore and Brick.

Non-judgemental about Luke’s method of income, this is one of the most honest teen flicks to come down the pipe in some time, a non-patronising hip-hop parable with a believable romantic subplot and a painfully recognisable sex scene between awkward Luke and seasoned Steph that puts it head and shoulders above American Pie gross-out clones.

The smart script, peppered with early 90s street slang, takes its time teasing out characters, the class gulf that separates Luke from the well-heeled Squires, and the Doc’s lifetime of regret that pushes him to Hunter S. Thompson levels of drug experimentation.

Taking Squires’ advice that an unexamined life is not worth living, Levine also sketches a solid supporting cast, including Mary Kate Olsen as a randy flower child who gives Squires a taste of youth, Famke Janssen as the Doc’s fad-addicted wife, Method Man as the pot connection, and indie queen Jane Adams as a one-time big noise musician.

With his walkman, backpack and ice cart cover for his weed business, Peck’s Luke is destined for poster cult status and the likeably regular-looking actor more than punches his weight in scenes with our Sir Ben, who devours his best role since Sexy Beast, casting vanity aside as a hypocritical, tail-spinning, pothead Deadhead.

Good-looking, minimum-fuss direction puts period in the detail (monolithic games consoles; pagers; Notorious B.I.G on the soundtrack; the handsome, briefly glimpsed Twin Towers) and when Luke makes a cheesy, impassioned plea to his zonked-out, suicidal, middle-aged best pal, you hope Levine will be back soon with something as fresh, candid and exciting as this.

Rob Daniel