Blu-Ray Review: ‘The Wackness’ Releases Dope Features For Slightly Wack Movie

CHICAGO – The coming-of-age comedy “The Wackness” with Josh Peck, Ben Kingsley, Olivia Thirlby, Mary-Kate Olsen, Method Man, and Famke Janssen may feature a bouncing hip-hop soundtrack and be about joyful things like first love, but it’s an oddly inert, haze-filled film, as if the regular marijuana usage in the film cast a haze over the entire project.

Only the always-interesting Kingsley and the delightful Thirlby, who’s been great in everything from “Juno” to “Snow Angels,” give the film any life at all and the great treatment of the film by Sony Pictures Home Video significantly helps the final product.

The Wackness is released by Sony Pictures Home Video on January 6th, 2009.
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Home Video

In 1994 New York City, Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck) deals weed to all kinds of clients, including his therapist, the very immature Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley). Luke’s dealing drugs to try and make ends meet before his family gets evicted. He happens to fall in love with Dr. Squires’ daughter, Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby), just as the relationship of her parents (Mrs. Squires is played by Famke Janssen) falls apart. All of the domestic drama and young-love comedy is scored to some of the best hip-hop of the mid-’90s including Notorious B.I.G., A Tribe Called Quest, and De La Soul.

The Wackness is released by Sony Pictures Home Video on January 6th, 2009. Photo credit: Sony Pictures Home Video

I don’t believe it’s the talented young Mr. Peck’s fault but the lead character in “The Wackness,” Luke Shapiro, is, to use the parlance of the film, “mad boring y’all”. “The Wackness” is essentially about a boy becoming a man during one crazy summer and realizing that some people - especially the disturbingly immature doctor, who longs to have an affair before his marriage crumbles - never grow up. Luke falls hard for Stephanie, who may not return the strong feelings, and is forced to try and deal enough drugs to support his family. Debut director Jonathan Levine deftly handles his talented cast and has an interesting visual style. Despite the film’s flaws, it’s a promising debut.

Where “The Wackness” stumbles is in the details. Too many of the conversations between Dr. Squires and Luke just linger on and on, like a hazy afternoon listening to The Grateful Dead. There are too many montages and trick shots for a story that should have felt more genuine and, probably, autobiographical. And the final act of the script hits way too many of the film’s themes directly on the head. No character ever needs to say something like, “Life is hard and it’s full of pain, but we take it because there’s great stuff too.” A film should be able to show you a lesson like that, not tell you. (And, no, just because a character comments on the cheesy nature of that line doesn’t make it okay to include it.)

Even more damagingly, Levine and Peck make too many mopey decisions with Luke. When Peck is allowed to smile and laugh, which is far too rarely, the film shows life. But he’s, quite simply, too quiet. Peck mumbles his way through the role, as if he’s trying to counterbalance the vibrancy of Kingsley, but makes the center of “The Wackness” a bit too hollow. Kingsley, great in a trifecta of independent films in the summer of 2008 that included this, “Transsiberian,” and “Elegy,” is excellent and Thirlby is quickly developing into one of the more intriguing young actresses working today.

Levine will become a better screenwriter and he has a confident visual style missing from most young directors. I can’t wait to see what happens when he leaves the autobiographical details of the ’90s behind. “The Wackness” is a near-miss with great supporting performances, interesting ideas, and promising direction.

The confident visual style fits perfectly for “The Wackness,” which has a unique color palette and several unusual camera tricks that, of course, look better in High-Definition. Sony rarely falters with their Blu-Ray transfers and “The Wackness” is no exception. And the thumping hip-hop soundtrack sounds great in a master HD audio track.

“The Wackness” includes an informative and interesting collection of special features with a commentary by Peck and Levine, deleted scenes, and three featurettes - “Luke Shapiro’s Dope Show,” “Keeping It Real: A Day in the Life of Jonathan Levine,” “Time in a Bottle: Behind-the-Scenes of The Wackness”. It’s a suprisingly detailed collection of special features that includes interviews with nearly everyone involved in the production. It’s a pretty dope collection of features for a movie that’s kind of wack.

By BRIAN TALLERICO Content Director HollywoodChicago.com brian@hollywoodchicago.com