Now Playing
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
48 17 Again
76 Adventureland
48 Angels & Demons
54 Battle for Terra
xx Bruno
80 Coraline
40 Dance Flick
83 Drag Me to Hell
72 Earth
45 Fast & Furious
61 Fighting
34 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
72 Gran Torino
73 Hangover, The
47 Hannah Montana: The Movie
51 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
54 Imagine That
41 Knowing
32 Land of the Lost
56 Monsters vs. Aliens
34 My Life in Ruins
51 My Sister's Keeper
46 Next Day Air
42 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
54 Observe and Report
25 Obsessed
48 Proposal, The
70 Public Enemies
61 Soloist, The
83 Star Trek
64 State of Play
55 Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
52 Terminator Salvation
35 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
77 Under the Sea 3D
88 Up
43 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
34 Year One

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

sort by name

sort by score

67 $9.99
75 24 City
66 Adoration
74 Afghan Star
48 Alien Trespass
56 American Violet
82 Anvil! The Story of Anvil
57 Away We Go
81 Beaches of Agnes, The
62 Big Man Japan
28 Big Shot-Caller, The
78 Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
55 Brothers Bloom, The
82 Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
xx Call of the Wild
63 Cheri
62 Cherry Blossoms
63 Dead Snow
65 Departures
18 Downloading Nancy
58 Easy Virtue
70 End of the Line, The
77 Every Little Step
64 Examined Life
80 Food, Inc.
38 Gigantic
56 Girl from Monaco, The
67 Girlfriend Experience, The
87 Gomorrah
89 Goodbye Solo
63 Great Buck Howard, The
79 Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
xx Home
82 Hunger
91 Hurt Locker, The
16 I Hate Valentine's Day
81 Il Divo
54 Is Anybody There?
71 Jerichow
58 Julia
74 Lemon Tree
36 Life is Hot in Cracktown
40 Limits of Control, The
42 Little Ashes
64 Lymelife
50 Management
57 Merry Gentleman, The
66 Moon
35 New York
62 Not Forgotten
xx Offshore
78 O'Horten
64 Outrage
40 Paris 36
54 Pontypool
71 Pressure Cooker
52 Quiet Chaos
83 Revanche
67 Rudo y Cursi
86 Seraphine
65 Sex Positive
70 Shall We Kiss?
77 Sin Nombre
59 Sleep Dealer
74 Song of Sparrows, The
54 Stoning of Soraya M., The
82 Sugar
84 Summer Hours
61 Sunshine Cleaning
28 Surveillance
42 Tennessee
63 Tetro
64 Throw Down Your Heart
80 Tokyo Sonata
63 Tokyo!
70 Tony Manero
74 Treeless Mountain
88 Tulpan
74 Two Lovers
83 Tyson
83 U2 3D
60 Under Our Skin
69 Unmistaken Child
69 Valentino: The Last Emperor
22 What Goes Up
45 Whatever Works
57 Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Wackness, The
Sony Pictures Classics


7.8

based on 31 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 17 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA 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)

GENRE(S):	Comedy \| Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Jonathan Levine
DIRECTED BY:	Jonathan Levine
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: January 6, 2009 Theatrical: July 3, 2008
RUNNING TIME:	95 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

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...

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

A funny, touching mood piece.

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.

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.

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.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Both darkly funny and life-affirming, in an offbeat and offhanded way.

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

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.

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.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

A modest but well-observed respite from coming-of-age clichés. Most of them, anyway.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The best thing about it is Peck, who shows you the sweet, virginal kid hiding inside the outlaw poseur.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

A crowd-pleasing portrait of boys-who-will-be-men-who-will-be-boys.

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.

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.

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.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

An almost-there comedy with diverting compensations.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Self-indulgent and needlessly complicated for what it ultimately delivers.

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.

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.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The movie feels autobiographical--emotionally authentic (with a fair amount of bitterness toward women) and somewhat unshaped.

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.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.8 (out of 10) based on 17 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".

Wackness, The Sony Pictures Classics

Wackness, The
Sony Pictures Classics