Reviewed by Michael Edwards
Stars Anton Yelchin, Robert Downey Jr., Hope Davis, Kat Dennings,
Tyler Hilton, Mark Rendall, Dylan Taylor, Megan Park, Jake Epstein, Jonathan Malen, Derek McGrath, Stephen Young
Written by Gustin Nash
Certification UK 15 | US R
Runtime 97 minutes
Directed by Jon Poll
A high school drama/coming-of-age comedy, Charlie Bartlett tells the tale of, unsurprisingly, Charlie Bartlett (Yelchin). The eponymous child is a wealthy lad with a torrid background: he has an absent father, an eccentric mother and has been expelled from a string of private schools before ending up in an archetypal "problem" state school full of the prerequisite bunch of misfits, activists and misunderstood social outcasts. Sound a little formulaic? Well, it's not quite that simple.
Yes, Charlie is about to become involved in some crazy capers. In his bid to become popular he takes some drastic measures, which primarily involve drugs. After being sent to a shrink and prescribed ritalin for his off-the-wall antics he goes a bit mental, which of course gives him an idea: he'll sell drugs at the school dance. When this proves a great success he decides to go one step further, but at the same time try to be helpful — thus he starts up a psychology practice in the boys' toilets, aided by the school bully. Now this may well be a bit funny but I would also argue that it's not that exciting or original, and is just a little irresponsible in the way it deals with a lot of issues — not least suicide, recreational drug use and childhood trauma. While some writers may bemoan the drugs side of things, however, I'm more inclined to take issue with the claim that we could all just solve our problems if we just talked a bit more. YAWN!
Anyway, I think that's enough whining from me now, for this film does have some good stuff to offer. The perfectly adequate comedy element had me laughing merrily a fair few times at Bartlett's sharp wit and canny business acumen, as well as the obligatory visual gags based upon the ritual humiliation and violence inherent in the high schools of Hollywood movies. But what really makes this movie stand out from its peers is that its denizens are actually 3D enough to be identified with. Aside from the melodramatic subplots attached to (fatherless) Charlie and (stressed and alcoholic) Principal Gardner (Downey), the characters come across as sufficiently messed up, enthusiastic, vulnerable and susceptible to human error to be identified with, and I think this owes a significant debt to the performances put in by Yelchin and Downey whose sensitivity to the nuances of reality surrounding the issues piled into this comedy/drama brings unquantifiable benefits to the film.
The bottom line, however, is that Charlie Barlett falls short in its attempt to be everything a high school film should be. The characters are too sensitive and attuned to their own problems for it to be a brilliantly funny satire of the turbulent life of the American teenager, and they are too obviously stuck into single categories to provide the richness needed for an engaging discussion on the rials and tribulations of the education system in the 21st century. It is fun and watchable, but certainly not unmissable.