Hard to Focus on the Dopeness When There is SO Much WACKNESS
The Wackness is a coming of age dramedy set on the blistering streets of New York City in the summer of 1994. Kurt Cobain is dead, Biggie Smalls is alive and everyone is smoking weed by the fist full.
Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck), an industrious drug dealer and soon to be high school graduate, pushes a modified juice cart through park paths and city streets, slinging his wares like a to a motley cast of freaks and geeks (including a ridiculous hippy stereotype played by one half of Michelle Tanner) that populate this strangely sad and magical world.
Despite selling drugs to all the cool kids, Luke is definitely not one of the cool crowd. His closest friendship is with his twisted shrink, Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley) who trades him half assed therapy for half ounces of ganja.
And of course there is a girl. Dr. Squire's step-daughter Kristen (Famke Janssen of Juno fame) who, despite being one of the in-crowd, starts up a summer romance with Josh, even if it is initially out of boredom. Josh ignores warnings that she will only break his heart and falls head over heels for the lovely young woman.
Th movie "The Wackness" is similar to its main character in that it is simultaneously heart-felt, complex and a complete mess. Subplots arise from nowhere and end without resolution. Dr. Squire's failing marriage, Josh's parents' financial hardships, dangerous relationships with a higher level drug dealer (Method Man) all fade in and out of the story like traffic signs on an intoxicated joyride. They distract from the story without providing any kind of direction.
Even Ben Kingsley's highly stylized Dr. Squires never quite finds his place in the whirlwind world created by writer director Jonathan Levine, who admits to basing the film on his own life as a teenager in New York (though he swears he never sold pot).
The one element of the film that rises above the fray is the character of Luke himself. Taking every crazy element of his life in stride, Luke focuses on making a difference the only way he knows how, living his life and selling his weed. Josh Peck brings in an understated performance in a role that could have easily gone the way of Jamie Kennedy-esque racial mugging. By making his street talking white drug dealer vulnerable and sincere we are tied irrevocably to his story, even if it is lacking structure or direction, cause who of us isn't lacking a little of direction?
Posted on 07/03/08 by:
TheDailyKirk
12:32 PM
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