'The Wackness' proves relatable (w/movie trailer)

COURTNEY SMITH

Issue date: 8/21/08 Section: Out & About

New York City, 1994: It is a time when pagers, not cell phones, are the tools of the drug trade. Tupac and Biggie Smalls are alive, but Kurt Cobain has just died.

Two people, however, are missing out on all of the excitement. Luke Shapiro, played by Nickelodeon star Josh Peck, is a socially uncomfortable teenage pot dealer. He has no friends, a family on the verge of financial collapse, and a "frozen ices" street vendor cart from which he conducts his "business."

He trades weed for sessions with his therapist, Dr. Squires, an endearing character played by Ben Kingsley. Dr. Squires is having female troubles with his much younger wife and happens to be the stepfather of Luke's biggest crush: the beautiful and way-out-of-his-league Stephanie.

Squires, a self-described "weird old guy," takes about half of the pharmaceuticals that he prescribes. He is an unlikely role model, to say the least. Nevertheless, the two men forge a friendship based on mutual understanding: Both think like teenagers and neither one is getting laid.

THE WACKNESS

Grade: A+
Verdict: This film is dope - literally, there's a lot of dope.

The duo decides to improve their lives together by making a lot of money, smoking a lot of weed and trying to sleep with a lot of girls.

These newfound life goals set the pair off on a journey all over New York, including "exotic" locations such as Brooklyn and Queens.

They encounter a montage of Luke's "business associates," including a Phish-loving, dread-locked hippie played by Mary-Kate Olsen, a lonely keyboardist named Elanor and Luke's hysterical Jamaican supplier Percy, played by Method Man.

Although the movie takes place more than a decade ago, its humanity removes the characters from their setting, making it a brilliant coming of age story that could be about anyone, anywhere.

Luke's painful awkwardness has the power to make a viewer's skin crawl because it evokes a feeling that crosses the lines of geography, age, race and social class. Everyone has probably felt left out and different at some point (barring they have a soul and have ever been in high school).

An endearing tale about the way the world is, it leaves a strong impression without moral or ethical judgment.

"The Wackness" presents a different way of living, in which sometimes, in the words of the film's tagline, "it's right to do the wrong things."