Charlie Bartlett
Rated: R
I should hate this movie. I should slap away its candy-colored shell and cry out "Fraud! Charlatan!" I should have walked out on it for its phoniness and narcissism. The only problem is that I was so charmed by Charlie Bartlett, I was powerless to protest its many flaws. I should hate that the hero of this film is a self-pitying, rich white kid who rides to popularity on his charm, ingenuity, and access to prescription medication which he deals to his one-dimensional classmates. I should hate that the film is a toothless satire of our over-medicated youth squeezed through, what is essentially, the 1990 Christian Slater film, Pump Up the Volume. Disaffected youth rally around an outsider and stand-up to the man. Rebel also gets with hot outsider girl with whom he exposes his softer side before having pale white people sex. I should hate this movie. Charlie Bartlett is as much a fantasy as The Lord of the Rings. Charlie (Anton Yelchin) speaks to his fellow students in adjacent bathroom stalls and then prescribes medication. As we all know, everyone is all about trusting the new kid with their deepest secrets and that no one would ever try to compete with Charlie. Hell, just throw me a joke where some guy wants to use the bathroom and Charlie's having a session. It's a fragile little dreamland that shatters if you so much as look at it the wrong way. I should hate this movie. It's a coup of casting that totally rescues this movie. Yelchin impressed the hell out of me in last year's Alpha Dog and this film confirms that he's easily one of the most talented young actors working today. He conveys Charlie's earnestness, intelligence, and has really crafted a character that's better than what's on the page. As written, Charlie is brilliantly enterprising and shockingly naïve, a combination that's a recipe for failure rather than success. But Yelchin, surrounded by an equally strong cast, manages to make it work. I should hate this movie, but I don't. Charlie Bartlett is the guiltiest of pleasures but director Jon Poll and his cast have taken writer Gustin Nash's complete misunderstanding of youth culture and relationships and turned it into something that will touch your heart even if it hurts your brain. Words by |