A precocious teenage genius is suddenly forced to adapt to the real world, while the real world around him is having some growing pains of its own in this independent comedy drama from Canada. Emerson Thorsen (Aaron Webber) is an exceptionally talented and intelligent 13-year-old who has been raised and educated by his free-thinking parents ,Rog (Robert Joy) and Kaya (Rebecca Jenkins). While Emerson is clever, witty, and has recently written his first novel, he doesn't seem to have very good
socialization skills when he spends time with others, and as he enters adolescence, Rog and Kaya decide to enroll him in public school so he can learn how to function with others (as well as patching up some gaps in his education). While most of Emerson's teachers are happy to have him in class, his ambiguous sexuality and tart intellectualism make him an immediate target for bullies in his small Nova Scotia town. Emerson's English teacher, Don Grant (Daniel MacIvor), has a bigger problem than most with his new student -- Emerson becomes quite infatuated with Don, and isn't at all shy about expressing his attraction, while the closeted Don is torn between a desire to return his advances and the knowledge that he'd be throwing away his career in education if he even acknowledged them. Whole New Thing received its world premier at the 2004 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
If its portrait of hippie parents raising a misfit child has much in common with Rebecca Miller's Ballad of Jack and Rose, Whole New Thing refrains from going to the same extremes.
Toronto-based filmmaker Amnon Buchbinder tackles the sensitive subject of adolescent sexuality in this winning coming-of-age character study set in a wintry small town in Nova Scotia.
But what's salutary about this effort is the canny intelligence and emotional understanding director Amnon Buchbinder has brought to the mostly well-wrought screenplay he wrote with MacIvor.
With its narcissistic, not-as- sharp-as- he-thinks- he-is juvenile hero and weird approach to bridging the generation gap, Whole New Thing plays a lot like Wes Anderson's Rushmore, only sober instead of whimsical.
The cast is uniformly excellent, but Webber in his first feature role is a stand out, delivering a subtle performance that offers a fully realized portrayal of a smart, sensitive, confused, and sometimes bratty and obnoxious youth.
A very touching coming-of-age story about a Canadian teenager who, having been raised by aging hippies, has no concept of real-world boundaries. When his parents take him out of home school and enroll him in a regular middle school, he becomes infatuated with his teacher and has trouble fitting in among the other
students. It would seem as if this were cliche, but it manages to be something utterly new, and fits the title.
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