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Wackness, The
EMAILPRINTSony Pictures Classics
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 31 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 18 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Comedy | Drama
Written by: Jonathan Levine
Directed by: Jonathan Levine
Release Date:
Theatrical: July 3, 2008
DVD: January 6, 2009
Running Time: 95 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: R for pervasive drug use, language and some sexuality
Starring Josh Peck, Sir Ben Kingsley, Method Man, Mary Kate Olsen, Olivia Thirlby, Famke Janssen, and Aaron Yoo
The Wackness centers on a troubled high school student named Luke Shapiro--a teenage pot dealer who forms a friendship with Dr. Jeffrey Squires, a psychiatrist and kindred lost soul. When the doctor proposes that Luke trade him weed for therapy sessions, the two begin to explore both New York City and their own depression. (Sony Picture Classics)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Film Threat Zack Haddad
If you have ever experienced the crushing effect of young love, you owe it to yourself to check out this gem of a dark comedy.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Duane Byrge
A tightly packed entertainment. It explodes through familiar teen-transition territory with dark ironies, but, all the while, touches are sentiments.
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Not everything in The Wackness works and there are times when the divergent serious/comedic tones clash instead of complementing each other. However, in spite of its flaws, the production gets us to care about the characters and their situations.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Both darkly funny and life-affirming, in an offbeat and offhanded way.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
Nostalgic for those bad old days, The Wackness was shot at a time when it actually looked like "America's Mayor" was going to be in a position to perform a similar cleanup on the entire country. That, of course, turned out to be a pipe dream
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
A smart comedy that serves as both bittersweet coming-of-age tale and '90s nostalgia piece, The Wackness has the feel of authenticity about it, even if some of its details (the ice cream cart, and the therapist's bong, for two) seem a bit much.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
What saves this movie, which won this year's audience award at Sundance, from being boring are performances by two actors who see a chance to go over the top and aren't worried about the fall on the other side.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
A modest but well-observed respite from coming-of-age clichés. Most of them, anyway.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
The most adventuresome element in The Wackness isn't its pop-culture skin but the unlikely friendship of Luke and Squires...As buddies, they're a kick. But you wish they had a kickier picture to support them.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Ann Hornaday
The dopest thing about The Wackness is Thirlby, who, after supporting turns in "Juno" and "Snow Angels," is quickly becoming reason enough to see any film she's in.
Read Full Review >NPR Bob Mondello
The story's not really about youthful indiscretions. It's more a tale of a young man struggling toward maturity, even as an older man struggles to abandon it. With that story, and that offbeat friendship at its center, The Wackness will likely strike plenty of chords with plenty of audiences.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
Nothing is surprising, that is, except the fact that the film has a big heart, a core of sweetness and tremendous cinematic ambition.
Read Full Review >Variety Dennis Harvey
The Amerindie annals are over-full of withdrawn male loners hoping to quirk or cathart themselves out of teenage purgatory. But like "Donnie Darko," "Thumbsucker" and a few others, The Wackness treads this familiar terrain with assurance and distinction.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The best thing about it is Peck, who shows you the sweet, virginal kid hiding inside the outlaw poseur.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
A crowd-pleasing portrait of boys-who-will-be-men-who-will-be-boys.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
A deeply personal coming-of-age story steeped in heady nostalgia and all the creative myopia that too often comes with it.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey
The Wackness is one of those Sundance coming-of-age films, with all that implies: a surfeit of forced edginess, kooky characters, cynicism-coated sentimentality and self-absorbed angst.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Disappointingly, the movie runs along the track of many earlier coming-of-age dramas, with appointed station stops at Cynicism, Puppy Love, Puppy Sex, Puppy Heartbreak, and Greater Wisdom.
Read Full Review >Slate Dana Stevens
The Wackness may not have much that's new to say about being 17--it's a fairly standard coming-of-age drama with a couple of noteworthy performances--but it's a definitive compendium of trivia about 1994 (by Levine's lights, the best year ever).
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
The movie he (Josh Peck) is in, The Wackness, written and directed by Jonathan Levine, makes a good-faith effort to steer clear of such clichés, and succeeds and fails in roughly equal measure.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Nick Pinkerton
All the drug-slinging material's counterfeit, but the script is refreshingly straight-faced in looking at the strange relationship between white boys and rap.
Read Full Review >Empire Nick De Semlyen
An unlikely buddy comedy that comes to life whenever Kingsley appears - he doesn't so much steal the show as roll it into a fat blunt and smoke it.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer
Kingsley is amusing to watch, however, even though he overdoses on strangeness. He's like a superannuated hippie crossed with the swami he just played in "The Love Guru."
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
When it's good, it's good, and when it fails, it's still clear what Levine was trying to do.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Self-indulgent and needlessly complicated for what it ultimately delivers.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Jan Stuart
Emulating its hero's recklessly independent spirit, The Wackness aspires to be something more than your average psychiatrist-bashing, dysfunctional-parents coming-of-age dramedy à la "Running With Scissors." It snows us with more visual flash than it knows what to do with.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
The Wackness' main draw is Kingsley's giddily over-the-top performance as a pothead, and the film delights in showing Gandhi sparking a huge bong or making out with Mary-Kate Olsen in a phone booth.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine David Edelstein
The movie feels autobiographical--emotionally authentic (with a fair amount of bitterness toward women) and somewhat unshaped.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Joe Neumaier
Occasionally stumbles into charm but more often is just wayward and hazy. It makes you hungry for a real movie from writer-director Jonathan Levine.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 18 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Dan C gave it a9:
This movie is nearly perfect. Quiet, unassuming, and brilliantly true to itself. Outstanding on every level.
J. G. gave it a0:
Vulgar, crude, dark, not funny and unredeeming; overacted, not funny. Did I say not funny? One dimensional characters stuck in a pointless and bad movie. Women are treated stereotypically and poorly. But, the popcorn was good.
Jane A gave it a7:
Definitely not the parallel to Juno I went into the theater expecting it to be. But it had its moments, especially with the conflict concerning the integrity of an old man and the identity of a directionless teen, and was not a complete waste of time.
Joel S gave it a10:
This movie was my life. I love it! Josh did a great role.
Joseph S gave it a7:
Not my kind of movie, but after seeing that Josh kid in his Nickolodean show, I was rather surprised at his ability to act. Guess can't judge without really seeing them try. OK movie.
Jay H. gave it a6:
The acting is terrific, but it is a rather dreary story. Well written, nicely edited and directed. The characters are well developed. I can't see how on earth this can be classified as a comedy.
Chad S. gave it a7:
The ice cart that Luke Shapiro(Josh Peck) pushes around the borough to facilitate his summer drug operation couldn't be a more conspicuous front. But the ice cart does work as a metaphor for Rudolph Giuliani's gentrification of New York during his seven-year reign as mayor, when the future 9/11 hero and presidential hopeful told all the Central Park hookers and drug dealers to go home like a real-life Travis Bickle. Percy(Method Man) went underground while a new wave of drug pushers ambled through the city undetected. A Tribe Called Quest's "Can U Kick It?", which contains a sample of Lou Reed's "Walk on the Wild Side", sounds primordial, as if the ghost of Martin Scorsese's New York("All the animals come out at night- whores, skunk p******, buggers, queens, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.") came home to roost and wondered where all the hookers in Central Park went. Even the drug dealers are different. Dr. Squires(Ben Kingsley) remembers a time when "the man"("I'm waiting for...") was a popular dude. "The Wackness", a mid-nineties period piece, is about an unpopular pot dealer in therapy, who's in love the therapist's daughter, a girl that's way out of his league. "The Wackness" is "The Sopranos" meets "Say Anything", on pot. Pete Tosh was right: "Doctors smoke it," too. Stephanie(Olivia Thirlby) sees things in terms of "dopeness" and "wackness". The film's dopeness can be attributed to Joshua Peck's natural performance as a shy kid who hides his emasculation behind the swagger and machismo of rap. Thank god he's not into Morrissey, or else Stephanie would never have f****d him. Luke's relationship with the pothead shrink is schematic and overfamiliar, save for the fact that he's a hilariously bad mentor. But there's wackness, too. The film spends an inordinate amount of time on the doctor's marital problems. Sometimes "The Wackness" forgets who the main character is. It should be about an ordinary person, not "Ordinary People".
