(That thing in blue just about this line is a link to a movie website: click on it, and then hit the return button to come back here. Do I have to tell you how to do everything? Sigh)
Yesterday afternoon we were looking for something to do, so Erik suggested we go to the movies. Not an unusual suggestion for a quiet Sunday afternoon, but I had a sense of foreboding going to the Majestic movie link on the Ipad. In the middle of July, all that’s out there are – yes, you know – movies designed to please a 13 year old boy. Shoot-em-up space movies. Animated films with pictures for 8 year olds but occasional dialogue for the adults forced to sit there for 2 hours to keep the kid quiet and away from porn on the computer. And the inevitable ‘scary movie’ genre with loud music and a cheesy, bloody plot line. But then there was this other pic that I’d seen a review for in The Atlantic: The Way Way Back. Said it was the best movie of the summer. Well, being the best movie of the summer generally puts one in the category of being The Cream of the Crap (imho)…
So OK, we went. And the movie was adoreable…it had a happy ending (which Erik insists on) and it wasn’t cheesy at all. In fact, the two writers-turned-directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash were in the film and were wonderful character actors. Apparently these two guys wrote the screenplay for 
The Descendants (a movie I loathed, by the way) but at least it got them noticed and apparently a little money so they could make a really good film: this one.
The plot line is a familiar one: two divorced parents, each with a kid, journey to the beach together to “try out being a family”. The girl is a typical teenage surly hottie and the boy is pale, awkward and miserable. You kinda know where it goes from here, so I won’t bother with the plot line. Instead, I’ll comment on the characters and actors that made it charming.
Let’s start with Sam Rockwell. You don’t know the name, but you know the actor. First, he was a psycopathic sadist in 
The Green Mile. The guy that just knew he was the extra doomed to die in Galaxy Quest. Finally, he was 
Zaphod Beeblebrox in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (a fabulous film recommended by my daughters and one I could watch a hundred times and never get tired of). So now do you remember him? Alas, the fate of the actor who does a great job in anything he’s in, but nobody remembers his name.
So poor Sam goes from being The President of the Galaxy to playing Owen, the owner of a broken down water slide amusement park called Water Wizz. Owen is a terminally adolescent 30 something year old man-child in a tank top, baggy shorts/swim trunks, sporting a funky haircut that’s clearly self-administered. Get the image? But inside this gnarly character beats the heart of a guy who truly understands what it means to be a 14 old boy who’s lost his way. He takes Duncan, the 14 year old boy who’s lost his way, under his wing in a most gentle, hip and sensitive way. Owen delivers the fastest, funniest dialogue in the movie – so fast that I told Robin she and I would go see it so 1) she can see it; and 2) so I can hear the dialogue again because it’s so well done. This character’s performance alone is worth the 8 bucks to get in to see the movie.
You might see yourself at a different age in the film; or see others you know and love (Allison Janney) (or don’t) (Amanda Peet) in the neighbor characters who are in perpetual states of alcohol-induced anesthesia to forget life as it is instead of what it should have been or they’d hope it would develop into. But somehow they exceed your expectations and avoid becoming caricatures. Toni Collette has some great moments with looks and mostly-hidden grimaces as Duncan’s Mom who wants the best for him but also thinks she should have a life after divorce. The role is vaguely reminiscent of her
Fiona Brewer in About a Boy, but without the suicide thing. Steve Carrell does a good dick character, more hardened than his Office guy but still complex enough for us to think his Trent isn’t beyond redemption.
And the little guy who plays Duncan – Liam James – is really 17 and an experienced actor. Nonethelss, he’s quite believable in this role, as Duncan is a nice foil for the crazies that surround him. You just know he’s going to turn out OK, in spite of everybody else’s efforts to make him miserable. The one scene that felt phony was when Duncan is supposed to break up a gathering of kids watching a couple of break dancers. It was just too sweet to be real…OK, so nobody is gonna write the perfect screenplay, are they? It’s a small criticism of an otherwise perfect jewel of a film.
So go see the movie. And if you don’t like it, then there’s clearly something not right widcha.