Though hit at Sundance, ‘The Wackness’ is stale
It was with some astonishment and displacement that I watched "The Wackness," featuring "D&R" fixture Josh Peck as Luke, a high-school kid who makes mad money peddling marijuana from an ice cream cart.
As a parent, I allow for a certain amount of crap TV and even enjoy some of it. But I have to leave the room during "Drake and Josh."
It's the kind of canned, predictable, shopworn sitcom that gives laugh-tracks a bad name, with the numbing, G-rated edgelessness of a low-rung Nickelodeon show.
So it was with some astonishment and displacement that I watched "The Wackness," featuring "D&R" fixture Josh Peck as Luke, a high-school kid who makes mad money peddling marijuana from an ice cream cart.
That makes him the bread-winner in his strife-torn family. Dad's bad investments are souring and his job's on the line, leading to nonstop arguing with Mom, which sends Luke to the streets or into his bedroom to sample product.
But Luke doesn't merely self-medicate - he trades dope for psychoanalysis from a wacky shrink (Ben Kingsley) who often inhales great, gulping tokes while pretending to deliver useful advice.
We've seen this nexus of teen drug dealer/disreputable shrink before ("Charlie Bartlett"). We've even seen Brian Cox ("Running With Scissors") chew more scenery (is that possible?) than Sir Ben in what is essentially the same role.
And it still hasn't really worked.
The novelty of the crazy psychiatrist has come and gone, and Kingsley doesn't add much except a streak of perverse childishness. (He makes out with Mary Kate Olson!)
And even this angle is stale. The idea of the post-baby boom generation being more mature than their parents is well-worn, especially at Sundance, where this movie was a hit.
Kingsley's outsized performance also distorts the picture. It's at heart a nostalgia piece (set in 1994 when director Jonathon Levine graduated from high school, hence the dreadful slang that yields the title) about a summer fling.
Clumsy Luke has fallen for the doctor's foxy, popular daughter (the watchable Olivia Thirlby, the best friend from "Juno"). Bored and lonely, she takes on the inexperienced Luke as a mercy project.
It ends predictably but without much emotional impact. Luke worries that his virginal heart might easily break - but dude, come on. You get three months with Thirlby on Fire Island.
If it's sympathy you're looking for, keep looking. *
Produced by Keith Calder, Felipe Marino, Joe Neurauter, written and directed by Jonathan Levine, music by David Torn, distributed by Sony Pictures Classics.