Tagline

Popularity Is A State of Mind.

Plot Summary

When he meets school bully Murphey, who shoves his head down a toilet bowl, his dreams of acceptance are quickly crushed. But the young entrepreneur soon finds another use for the same bathroom stall, setting up shop as the school's unlikely shrink to his troubled fellow students, who line up for unorthodox counseling and medication that Charlie gets from his family's on-call psychiatrist. Charlie's the talk of the school until he catches the eye of the depressed Principal Gardner. If Charlie is forced to shut down his little enterprise, will his popularity also disappear? Charlie Bartlett is another addition the offbeat teen dramedy genre, with elements strikingly similar to Thumbsucker, Rushmore, and Rocket Science. With the help of strong performances by Yelchin, Davis, and Downey Jr., Charlie Bartlett attempts to appeal to a more mature audience. Despite being precocious, Charlie is innocent at the core, exploring the inner goodness of even the school's meanest bully. As a result, the film shifts back and forth between adult cynicism and childlike wonder as Charlie learns that it's okay to be just a kid.