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The Wackness By Harry Forbes Catholic News Service NEW YORK (CNS) -- "The Wackness" (Sony Classics) is an offbeat coming-of-age drama -- set in 1994 New York to a hip-hop soundtrack -- concerning Luke (Josh Peck), a pot-dealing high school graduate with a troubled home life. His bickering middle-class parents (Talia Balsam and David Wohl) are on the brink of eviction, with the father in continual financial scrapes. Their difficulties are apparently part of Luke's motivation to make some illegal cash. Luke pays his therapist, Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley in a quirky change of pace), with drugs in lieu of cash, and the two develop a most unlikely friendship. About midway through the film, the two start dealing drugs together, with Luke's Italian ice cart serving as a front. The relationship is strained when Luke falls for the shrink's promiscuous stepdaughter, Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby), herself one of Luke's clients, and Squires warns Luke to stay away despite his ongoing advice for Luke to, shall we say, give vent to his adolescent hormones. Squires' marriage to a considerably younger wife (Famke Janssen), though, is also in trouble. Peck's fine performance is often affecting, and there is trenchant humor in director-writer Jonathan Levine's script. But the setup is just plain unbelievable and the milieu is mostly sordid. The elements below, along with the casual permissiveness with which they are presented, are obviously problematic despite Luke's clearly delineated decency (apart from the small matter of his drug dealing, that is), a solid moral thread and a reasonably redemptive wrap-up. The film contains pervasive rough language and some profanity, extensive drug dealing and use, nonmarital sexual encounters without nudity, brief rear and upper-female nudity elsewhere, masturbation, a suicide attempt and strong sexual talk. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is O -- morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian. - - - Forbes is director of the Office for Film & Broadcasting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. More reviews are available online at www.usccb.org/movies. END Copyright (c) 2008 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed. CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250 |
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