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Review:
 There
will always be coming of age films about seniors in high school.
Some will be good and some will be bad. It's a subject that will
never go out of style.
Justin Cobb(Lou Pucci) is a typical high school senior. He's
somewhere in the lower edge of typical. His vice isn't violence or
drugs or anything, he just sucks his thumb, something that drives
his parents(Tilda Swinton and Vincent D'Onofrio) nuts, and doesn't
make him all that happy either. As his brotherJoel Cobb(Chase
Offerle) compains: “You too busy being weird for anyone to notice
I”ve got problems.”
So we've got your typical American dysfunctional family. The
disappointed-in-life father, a movie-starstruck (but ashamed of
it) mother and two unhappy kids searching for a way to get out of
their ruts.
But this is all about Justin, and Justin has two basic problems:
how to avoid having to get braces again, and how to get into
Rebecca's (Kelli Garner) pants. So….
Justin frequently consults with his dentist-cum-guru, Dr. Perry
Lyman(Keanu Reeves) on what to do with his teeth. At first what's
done doesn't work, and then Dad…rather Mike [he thinks his kids
are too old to call him that] tries something that's embarrassing
which then leads to Rebecca dumping him. Then he discovers Ridilin…
Drugs and people's reactions to them are generally interesting
pits of plotting, “Trainspotting” being a good example, and what's
really strange about this is the fact that the medication works
better than all expectations is shown as a bad thing to some
extent, his debate coach (Vince Vaughn) frets about having
“created a monster.”
The transformation from slacker to overachiever to something else
is sort of like a train wreck. Horrible, but you can't take your
eyes off it. The acting is generally first rate. Swinton and
D'Onofrio have been nominated for Oscars@ and other awards, and no
doubt young Pucci is going to get some too for this thing.
Definitely worth a look.
Eric Lurio
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