The Wackness

SYNOPSIS

Teenage rites-of-passage stories and midlife crisis sagas are both rich subjects for comic drama, and Jonathan Levine's film is a hybrid of these two genres. The setting is New York in 1994, where frustrated high-school graduate Luke (Josh Peck) spends his summer selling marijuana from an ice-cream trolley. One of his best clients is his psychiatrist, ageing hippy Dr Squires (Ben Kingsley), and when the older man's marriage to his bored trophy wife (Famke Janssen) breaks down, they join forces and embark on a drug-influenced graffiti campaign. The serious side of things is ably handled and thankfully never too maudlin, and there's a romantic subplot involving Luke's pursuit of Squires's stepdaughter (Olivia Thirlby). But the comedy is where this story excels, with Kingsley on superb form as the daffy Squires, in an off-kilter performance that flirts with eccentricity but stays just the right side of human.