The Wackness (2008)
Average Rating: 6.3/10
Reviews Counted: 127
Fresh: 88 | Rotten: 39
Sympathetic characters and a clever script help The Wackness overcome a familiar plot to make for a charming coming-of-age comedy.
Average Rating: 6.3/10
Critic Reviews: 30
Fresh: 21 | Rotten: 9
Sympathetic characters and a clever script help The Wackness overcome a familiar plot to make for a charming coming-of-age comedy.
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Average Rating: 3.6/5
User Ratings: 24,553
Movie Info
A psychiatrist (Ben Kingsley) is put into a moral quandary when a young drug dealer who's been supplying him with pot in exchange for clinical treatment ends up dating his daughter in this comedy from All the Boys Love Mandy Lane's writer/director Jonathan Levine. Josh Peck, Famke Janssen, Mary-Kate Olsen, and Method Man co-star in the Occupant Films production. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
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Cast
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Ben Kingsley
Dr. Jeffrey Squires -
Josh Peck
Luke Shapiro -
Famke Janssen
Mrs. Squires -
Olivia Thirlby
Stephanie -
Mary-Kate Olsen
Union -
Jane Adams (II)
Eleanor -
Method Man
Percy -
Aaron Yoo
Justin -
Talia Balsam
Mrs. Shapiro -
David Wohl
Mrs. Shapiro -
Bob Dishy
Grandpa Shapiro -
Joanna Merlin
Grandma Shapiro -
Shannon Briggs
Bodyguard #1 -
Roy Milton Davis
Homeless Man
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The Wackness Trailer & Photos
All Critics (129) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (88) | Rotten (39) | DVD (5)
Kingsley's shamelessly zingy performance adds welcome pep, and a delicate, achingly sincere summertime idyll on Fire Island offers notice of Levine's evident promise.
Top CriticThat first sight of Ben Kingsley sucking down a bowl will burn into your memory. You may be watching The Wackness but it's hard to forget that this is Gandhi putting Bic to bong in Jonathan Levine's silly, sappy and sympathetic coming-of-age memoir.
The Wackness marks a step up in ambition, but it is also self-indulgent and needlessly complicated for what it ultimately delivers: a somber John Hughes picture scored to A Tribe Called Quest and Mary J. Blige.
On the downside: There is a wackness to The Wackness, a saggy psychic undertow that drags down its lighter and smarter aspects.
The Wackness, for all its eccentricities and emotional pain, is really a sweet little film.
The characters are sympathetically drawn and the modest wisdom rings true.
An exercise in style and wit, two commodities that never go out of fashion.
Josh Peck and Ben Kingsley make for an oddly engaging couple in Jonathan Levine's audacious comedy about sex, drugs, and unexpected friendships.
It's an utterly routine picture, but its low-key mood and acting disarm
With a game cast and cool songs from the era... heartfelt moments battling clumsy ones, The Wackness isn't quite dope but, like a good mixtape it is full of highlights.
Dumb title? Certainly. Perfectly proportioned? Nope. True-to-life? Certainly not. An enjoyably quirky indie comedy? You bet.
Parallel yet intertwined older and younger generations, and a real girl, set this above the usual young dudes genre, changing from comic to romantic to poignant and back.
If nothing else, it's probably worth seeing for the kissing scene between Kingsley and Mary-Kate Olsen.
It's an old theme. Levine tackles it with gusto and verve, and if ultimately he overdoes it with a hi-end quirky style, I think there's enough authenticity here to see the film through.
This is a gently humorous and beautifully moving film.
Levine's extended use of sepia-toned cinematography adds to the film's charmless look, matching the bleakness of the lives of most of the people he presents to the audience.
It muddles through on its period infatuation and on Kingsley's dope-loving turn as a doctor constantly on the verge of another hit.
The performances are all very fine, but the standout is Ben Kingsley's Squires. It's so unexpected.
Better than most "coming of age" stories due to some fine comic and dramatic performances by a talented cast.
A thoroughly engaging comic drama with absurdist elements %u2013 or is that just real life
THE WACKNESS is one of those small little movies that come under the radar and sneak up on you.
Over-hyped.
The Wackness, while no masterpiece, is the kind of film that doesn't come to much but is watchable as it saunters along with a provoking sense of meaningful pessimism. The performances are really the thing - Levine hasn't managed anything better.
The film's forlorn charm is a little reminiscent of Cameron Crowe's adolescent memoir Almost Famous. It's a tiny bit soppy, too, but you can forgive that in a teenager.
The Wackness is a teen drama, set in 1994 against a backdrop of laidback hip-hop and a roasting hot New York which tries just a bit too hard to be cool. But it is definitely not wack (bad).
Kingsley is likewise on form and hits home with some terrifically world-weary one liners, while director Jon Levine brings a refreshing inventiveness to the film.
Audience Reviews for The Wackness
Super Reviewer
This is both a coming of age drama (with occasional bits of comedy) and a love letter to the nostalgic days of the 90s. In fact, the film is not very subtle when it coems to reminding the audience that the film is set in 1994. This might be annoying to some, but I rather liked it, but I have a huge love for the 90s, so there. Musically, since this is an urban film, and because the main character is into hip hop, that's what the bulk of the soundtrack is, although there's some nice chestnuts from the 60s and 70s thrown in as well, so that's great.
The characters aren't really the most admirable or worthy of being role models, and they aren't always totally likeable or sympathetic, but they are interesting, so that makes watchign a movie about them worthwhile. I couldn't completely relate to this film or the characters in every way, but I found enough similarities to make them somewhat more sympathetic.
I liked the lead, but this is one of those movies that is owned by the suporting characters. This film's got an intersting cast, and they all do a pretty decent job (at the very least), especially Ben Kingsley- who really goes off the rails and is rather unrecognizable here as the therapist who is also a drugged out relic yearning for the good old days. Josh Peck is not bad as Luke, but I wasn't blown away by him. Olivia Thirlby, who I liked in Juno, is even better here, giving a sassy and hip performance as the stepdaughter/love interest. In smaller but memorable roles are Method Man as Luke's supplier and Mary-Kate Olsen as one of Luke's customers, a party girl who has a really memorable WTF scene with Sir Ben.
Going back to the music for a sec, I think it's interesting to note that this is the second film that Olivia Thirlby has appeared in which features "All the Young Dudes" by Mott The Hoople. Odd.
This is a good movie, but not great. It's adequate, but I give it slighly higher marks (admittedly) because I'm a fan of the time period, I like seeing dignified actors play way against type, but do so in dignified ways that don't seem forced. If a movie about angsty bored drug users in the 90s sounds like your type of thing, then give this a watch.
Super Reviewer
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- Luke Shapiro: Do me a favor, Steph?
- Stephanie: Huh?
- Luke Shapiro: Just stand there til I leave. I wanna remember this. I've never done it before.
- Stephanie: Never done what?
- Luke Shapiro: Had my heart broken.
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- Luke Shapiro: I'm Luke Shapiro. I'm a drug dealer. Hear my cry.
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- Dr. Jeffrey Squires: Life has a funny way of turning you into the one thing you don't want to be.
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- Dr. Jeffrey Squires: It's great, living. Get your heart broken, find yourself face down in the gutter, get your balls sucked, make a real mess of a life.
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- Luke Shapiro: So that was all bullshit right? All that stuff about embracing your pain, making it a part of you? You can't do this, you can't just give up. Life is hard and it's full of pain and what-not, but we take it cause there's great stuff too. And we can do it cause we have friends- because we have each other.
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Movie: ID: 770676625 Title: The Wackness Release Date: 2008-07-03 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 4 Status: 1
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