The Wackness reminds me a lot of Brick, which, a few years ago was one of those heavily touted festival darlings. Both tell the stories of high school kids in a very adult, incredibly creative way, and both get amazing performances from talented, young, leading actors. I really hope Wackness gets the same sort of red carpet reception Brick did, because even though it lacks the greatness of Joseph Gordon-Levitt it’s just as good.
In The Wackness, it’s Josh Peck who stars as Luke Shapiro. The year is 1994, and it’s the start of the summer after he’s just graduated from high school. To make money for college Shapiro deals drugs, weed mostly. Normally the guy with the grass is pretty popular, but in the case of Shapiro the fact that he’s always holding is just enough to make him the most popular of the unpopular people, or the least popular of the popular, depending on how you look at it. As he’s told later in the movie, Shapiro tends to look for the wackness in things rather than the dopeness, so you can guess how he looks at it. Side note: I can’t wait for The Dopeness to be the title of this movie’s sequel. Hey, it’s 1994 and that’s just how kids talked.
The movie is fantastically period specific, and if like me you went to high school in the mid-nineties you’ll feel like you just stepped out of a time machine and back into the glory days of A Tribe Called Quest. Word.
Luke’s only real friend is his shrink Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley) who, allows him to pay for his sessions in weed. For every bit as sympathetic and real as Luke is, Dr. Squires is as weirdly bizarre and funny as possible. Kingsley plays the character almost like a toned down version of Robin Williams. That’s 80s Robin Williams, back when he was snorting everything that came near his nose and was as a consequence, still really funny. Kingsley is also funny, and he gets a lot of big laughs, but if there’s any criticism to be leveled at the film it’s that he almost seems to belong in a different script. Squires starts out simply as a sounding board for Luke, but the two begin to bond as Squires’ life starts to fall apart and Luke’s finally begins blossoming.
This is the first movie I’ve seen so far at Sundance that has any sort of potential mass appeal, but it does it simply by being incredibly original, insightful, and playful, not by pandering. Josh Peck’s performance is amazing and if there’s any justice in the world you’ll be hearing more about both him and The Wackness later in the year. It's already getting big buzz at the festival. While waiting for another movie to start I overheard a Mandalay Vice President opining her inability to buy it for them. Expect big things from The Wackness
