The Wackness
There would appear to a couple of major obstacles preventing me from enjoying the film The Wackness, which is about a pot dealing, rap-loving kid during the summer of 1994. I can count on two fingers the number of times I've smoked pot, and I don't like rap music or the cultural residue of it, such as white kids using the exclamation "word" or pronouncing the words "all right" as if it sounds like "ah-yite." Despite this film being enshrouded in a cloud of marijuana smoke with a soundtrack from Yo! MTV Raps, I found it absorbing and touching, one of my favorites this year.
Most of this is due to the performance of Sir Ben Kingsley as something of a movie cliche--the doctor who can't heal himself. After an initial resistance to this old chestnut, I began to admire the performance of a man who hates himself while dispensing advice to others. This despite a scene in which Kingsley makes out with Mary-Kate Olsen in a phone booth, an "ew" moment that is more revolting than it sounds.
Josh Peck is the central character, Luke Shapiro, a lumpen high school kid who deals dope from an Italian ice wagon. One of his clients is Kingsley, a psychologist who exchanges therapy for dime bags. Luke is about to graduate from high school, and has a typically pessimistic view of this stage of life: "I would graduate, go to my safety school, grow older, and die, " he says. I can empathize, there's no moment in a person's life that has such a disproportionate sense of excitement in comparison to the fuss that is made, except maybe for college graduation.
Luke has a tendency to see the dire side of things, and that's where the title comes from. He is told that instead of seeing the "dopeness" of things, he instead sees the "wackness." I gather from this that "dope" means good and "wack" means bad, but there was no glossary with the film. Luke hates his parents, who are constantly fighting, and would seem to be the only drug dealer in the history of the profession who has trouble getting laid.
Then he starts hanging out Olivia Thirlby, a popular girl from high school and Kingsley's stepdaughter. As he and Kingsley form a friendship, his attraction to Thirlby complicates things. Despite this triangle, the friendship between Peck and Kingsley strengthens into a bond that is immensely satisfying to watch. Yes, Kingsley gives his character a variety of quirks, perhaps none more than his leonine head of hair, but by the end, when his own marriage falls apart and he and Peck realize they are each other's best friends, I was moved.
Kingsley's character is so interesting that it almost excuses that Luke is a bit of a blank slate. Yes, he's a pot dealer, an aficionado of rap, and has excellent taste in women, but beyond that we know little about him, and at times comes off as a doofus. The courtship of Thirlby is somewhat gilded with a Penthouse letter fantasy, but that's certainly okay by me.
The music is important to this film, although I will admit ignorance on most of it. According to one description of the film, 1994 is hailed as the greatest year for rap. Okay. In 1994 I was listening to "alternative" music, and there are brief mentions of the death of Kurt Cobain. But there are bones thrown to old guys like me. This is the era when people were constantly making mix tapes for each other, and no less than three are made in this film. At the end Peck listens to one made orm him by Kingsley, and it includes All the Young Dudes, by Mott the Hoople. I almost had a tear come to my eye, as much due to the emotion of the scene as to finally hearing a song that I knew.
Most of this is due to the performance of Sir Ben Kingsley as something of a movie cliche--the doctor who can't heal himself. After an initial resistance to this old chestnut, I began to admire the performance of a man who hates himself while dispensing advice to others. This despite a scene in which Kingsley makes out with Mary-Kate Olsen in a phone booth, an "ew" moment that is more revolting than it sounds.
Josh Peck is the central character, Luke Shapiro, a lumpen high school kid who deals dope from an Italian ice wagon. One of his clients is Kingsley, a psychologist who exchanges therapy for dime bags. Luke is about to graduate from high school, and has a typically pessimistic view of this stage of life: "I would graduate, go to my safety school, grow older, and die, " he says. I can empathize, there's no moment in a person's life that has such a disproportionate sense of excitement in comparison to the fuss that is made, except maybe for college graduation.
Luke has a tendency to see the dire side of things, and that's where the title comes from. He is told that instead of seeing the "dopeness" of things, he instead sees the "wackness." I gather from this that "dope" means good and "wack" means bad, but there was no glossary with the film. Luke hates his parents, who are constantly fighting, and would seem to be the only drug dealer in the history of the profession who has trouble getting laid.
Then he starts hanging out Olivia Thirlby, a popular girl from high school and Kingsley's stepdaughter. As he and Kingsley form a friendship, his attraction to Thirlby complicates things. Despite this triangle, the friendship between Peck and Kingsley strengthens into a bond that is immensely satisfying to watch. Yes, Kingsley gives his character a variety of quirks, perhaps none more than his leonine head of hair, but by the end, when his own marriage falls apart and he and Peck realize they are each other's best friends, I was moved.
Kingsley's character is so interesting that it almost excuses that Luke is a bit of a blank slate. Yes, he's a pot dealer, an aficionado of rap, and has excellent taste in women, but beyond that we know little about him, and at times comes off as a doofus. The courtship of Thirlby is somewhat gilded with a Penthouse letter fantasy, but that's certainly okay by me.
The music is important to this film, although I will admit ignorance on most of it. According to one description of the film, 1994 is hailed as the greatest year for rap. Okay. In 1994 I was listening to "alternative" music, and there are brief mentions of the death of Kurt Cobain. But there are bones thrown to old guys like me. This is the era when people were constantly making mix tapes for each other, and no less than three are made in this film. At the end Peck listens to one made orm him by Kingsley, and it includes All the Young Dudes, by Mott the Hoople. I almost had a tear come to my eye, as much due to the emotion of the scene as to finally hearing a song that I knew.
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