‘Terri’ Paints Honest Portrait of Adolescent Alienation

Rating: 3.5/5.0

CHICAGO – Nothing says “Official Selection at Sundance” quite like an obese teen grappling with an angst-ridden existence. There have been countless pictures centering on young, plus-size protagonists, though few feel three-dimensional. Tracy Turnblad and Claireece Precious Jones aren’t people so much as they are symbols of survival in the face of adversity. It’s easy to root for them, but it’s more than a little difficult to believe in them.
 
I believed in Terri, the 15-year-old star of Azazel Jacobs’s perceptive new film, simply because he’s a great deal like a lot of the kids I knew in high school. When asked how he feels, Terri draws a picture of a face with a straight horizontal line for a mouth. The expression is neither happy nor sad. It’s simply beaten into submission by the daily hell of adolescence. Terri has no desire to pity himself or put up a false front in order to gain his peers’ acceptance. He merely wants to get by…and stay comfortable. That explains his wardrobe comprised entirely of pajamas.
 
Though “Terri” is being marketed as a comedy, it’s a lot more sensitive and touching than it is laugh-out-loud funny. Jacobs refuses to shy away from moments of painful and relatable awkwardness, and unlike many filmmakers exploring the “coming of age” genre, he doesn’t act hipper than the material. Instead, he finds an intriguing middle ground between satire and drama that feels more authentic than an overly indulgent quirk-fest. Relative newcomer Jacob Wysocki is refreshingly unmannered in his titular portrayal, conveying the alienation and apprehension of his character while barely moving his face. The zombified expression he sports in class is as accurate as any I’ve seen since “Ferris Bueller,” and his reaction to vulgar bullies is more bewildered than enraged. Wysocki is so believable in the role that he occasionally causes the dialogue to sound more self-consciously written than it may have been with a more heightened lead actor. The debut screenplay by Patrick Dewitt is mostly successful at humanizing and subverting the clichés it utilizes, but there are a few key moments of contrivance that feel all the more false when placed in the grounded atmosphere created by Jacobs and his uniformly excellent cast. Dewitt’s script is a terrific first effort and includes moments of uncommon insight, though its imperfections ultimately cause the film to fall short of its potential.

Jacob Wysocki and John C. Reilly star in Azazel Jacobs’s Terri.
Photo credit: ATO Pictures

As the film opens, Terri is seen caring for his ailing uncle (Creed Bratton), who spends most of the time staring into space. No details are revealed about the whereabouts of Terri’s absent parents, and it’s clear that their abandoned son hasn’t got a clue about where they might be. This utter lack of an adult guardian makes his newfound friendship with the school’s vice principal, Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly), all the more vital. He sees in Fitzgerald a friend he can trust, though his natural tendency to put an older role model on a pedestal causes him to overlook the man’s fallibility. Fitzgerald’s desire to make each of his students feel “special” results in him injecting a considerable percentage of hot air into their weekly one-on-one sessions. Reilly has rarely been more delightful than he is in his scenes opposite Wysocki, where he alternates between tones of genial authority and startling candidness. There’s a beautifully written monologue in which Fitzgerald reveals his unease in watching a newly hired secretary pretend to act sad about the death of her predecessor. It’s the compassionate mentor’s unique way of conveying to his pupil that “life is a mess” and an important part of growing up is learning to accept that fact. Jacobs approaches these hard truths with the same delicacy and poignance he brought to his wonderful 2008 feature, “Momma’s Man,” which followed a much older man on his path toward embracing adulthood.
 
While Reilly and Wysocki’s scenes are fresh and unpredictable, other moments feel a trifle routine. Once Terri spots a pretty blonde student, Heather (Olivia Crocicchia), being sexually pressured by a horny boy, it’s easy to guess what will happen next. Heather is publicly humiliated, shunned by her peers and left only with the school’s unpopular outcasts to jump to her defense. In the film’s weakest scene, Terri engages in some wildly uncharacteristic behavior in order to break the excruciating silence surrounding Heather in a particularly judgmental classroom. It’s a small moment, but an utterly crucial one in the development of the film’s central characters, and it feels entirely forced. Yet many other potentially formulaic scenes are redeemed by Jacobs and Dewitt’s deft attention to detail. There have been countless films in which a clueless teacher misreads a disturbance in the class and ends up reprimanding the wrong student. That’s precisely what happens to Terri early in the film, but after the students have left the room, the camera briefly lingers on the teacher’s haggard expression, which speaks volumes about her own inner life, recalling memories of one’s own teachers who were too burnt out to comprehend what’s unfolding in front of their faces.

Terri opens July 22 at the Landmark Century Centre Cinema.
Photo credit: ATO Pictures

Perhaps the strongest sequence in the film is also the most quietly unsettling. Under the influence of his uncle’s pills, Terri and two fellow outcasts, Heather and Chad (Bridger Zadina), take part in an extended evening where misplaced sexual urges and the desire for intimacy come bubbling to the surface. Zadina is especially funny here—nailing the hormonal hubris of a boy deluded into thinking he’s a much bigger man. In the hands of a filmmaker like Larry Clark, this scene could’ve been a lot more awkward, but Jacobs knows precisely how much to show in order to convey the intense insecurity of his characters without veering toward exploitation. Though this scene occurs late in the film, it’s the moment when “Terri” really catches fire, fully enveloping the audience in the ever-evolving psyches of its young characters. Even the film’s open-ended anti-conclusion feels satisfying since no tidily wrapped ending could do this complicated protagonist justice. Despite the picture’s flaws, “Terri” succeeds on the basis of its fine performances, intricately textured characters and insightful direction. The smile at the end feels earned rather than imposed.

By MATT FAGERHOLM Staff Writer HollywoodChicago.com [email protected]