Method Man

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

BrianTT — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:06:44 -0700

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.

‘The Wackness’ is released by Sony Pictures Home Video and stars Josh Peck, Olivia Thirlby, Ben Kingsley, Famke Janssen, Method Man, and Mary-Kate Olsen. It was written and directed by Jonathan Levine. It was released on January 6th, 2009.

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

Interview: ‘Nickelodeon’ Star Josh Peck Grows Up, Director Jonathan Levine Speaks Out on ‘The Wackness’

HollywoodChicago.com — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:05:46 -0600

CHICAGO – It’s 1994 in New York City. In an age before mobile phones, terrorist threats and a grown-up Olsen twin, there is “The Wackness”. This is the debut film of writer and director Jonathan Levine and a coming-out role of sorts for the child star Josh Peck of the popular Nickelodeon series “Drake & Josh”.

HollywoodChicago.com recently interviewed the director and “The Wackness” star for insight on the recent nostalgia of the film and an era seemingly so close yet so far away.

Actor Josh Peck (left) and director Jonathan Levine for “The Wackness” in Chicago on June 19, 2008.
Photo credit: Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

Olivia Thirlby from “Juno” fame as Stephanie in “The Wackness”.
Photo by JoJo Whilden, © 2008 Occupant Films and courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

The film’s time and place is a mood element for the story of Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck). He’s an unpopular east side teenager recently graduated from high school.

His parents are having money conflicts and he’s wrestling with his affection for a comely classmate named Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby of “Juno” fame). She clouds his summer job of selling marijuana from an ice cream cart.

“It’s autobiographical in the sense that this was the world I grew up in, that’s how we talked, those were the clothes we wore and those were the type of kids who I hung out with,” director Levine said.

He added: “The outsider thing is interesting to me. The arbitrary nature of ‘who’s cool’ in high school is interesting. But in the movie, it’s about individual perspective. Your reality can change on how you perceive it.”

To complicate matters, a psychotherapist named Squires (Ben Kingsley) – who occasionally administers to Luke (in exchange for dope) – is Stephanie’s stepfather. The two develop a grudgingly close friendship that’s rooted in Luke’s loneliness and Squires’ mid-life crisis.

Peck said about Kingsley: “He intimidated me only when he did Gandhi impressions (laughter). But when we first met, he put all my worries to rest. He knew that it was up to him – because of his status, stature and the caliber of his acting – to put my neuroses and fears to rest.”

Sir Ben Kingsley as Dr. Squires in “The Wackness”.
Photo by JoJo Whilden, © 2008 Occupant Films and courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

Rating: 3.0/5.0

“I let him do whatever the f**k he wanted (laughter),” Levine said. “He is very, very smart. As a relatively new director, it was incumbent upon me to just say: ‘What do you need?’ Clearly he is going to do something that makes me look good.”

The film features Peck, Thirlby and Mary-Kate Olsen in transitional roles as young adults indulging in drinking, dope smoking and carnal congress. Levine and Peck commented on the image of more innocent stars treading onto new territory.

“I assumed already where their interests lie in the material,” Levine said. “I was respectful about their decisions to go maybe where they haven’t gone before. It was never discussed beyond the character scenarios and also not in a larger sense.”

“I think people will be surprised to see me smoking weed and having sex. It was the first time I actually did it (laughter),” Peck related. “I hope the fans of ‘Drake & Josh’ – for example, someone who was 12 years old when I was 15 – will have grown up with me. I’m 21, so they would be 18 now, and I think this movie is right in their wheelhouse.”

The New York City of the mid-1990s becomes an influential character in the story. It’s empty and isolating in the summer before technological connections.

Josh Peck (left) as Luke and Olivia Thirlby as Stephanie in “The Wackness”.
Photo by JoJo Whilden, © 2008 Occupant Films and courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics

“The big difference is a world without cell phones and the Internet. It’s a very different world. That allows this movie to be set almost in the Stone Age,” Levine said.

Levine also discussed showing the World Trade Center: “To me, it is the punctuation mark at the end of the sentence. I’m using that image as a note of bittersweet nostalgia. It has to be handled delicately, but at the same time, it’s a very powerful image. I didn’t want to shy away from it.”

In conclusion, Josh Peck spoke about the challenges of imbibing Luke with a sensibility that’s relatable for all older teens making the transition into adulthood.

Peck said: “It was very necessary for Luke to have this sense of vulnerability in the way he carried himself. All his cynicism and answers for things are rooted in the fact that he is lost.

“Becoming an adult at that point (18 years old) seems to be impossible. Without the layers, you wouldn’t have cared enough about Luke. [Levine’s] writing took care of that character.”

“The Wackness” stars Josh Peck, Ben Kingsley, Olivia Thirlby, Mary-Kate Olsen and Method Man. The film opened on July 11, 2008 at AMC River East 21 in Chicago, Landmark’s Century Centre Cinema in Chicago, CineArts 6 in Evanston, Ill. and Landmark’s Renaissance Place Cinema in Highland Park, Ill.

By PATRICK McDONALD
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com