The Wackness (2008)
5/10
You getting down with the Wackness... No not really!
21 June 2008
Warning: Spoilers
I've seen this film a thousand times before.

Yes different actors, different directors, different camera styles but there was nothing new about this coming of age drama.

The first film it really reminded me of was Richard Linklater's Slacker however. In both tone and style it seemed to drift in some of the ways Slacker had done but whilst Linklater's film just let itself go The Wackness tries to incorporate some type of gravitas. This is possibly the fault of the studio rather than the director but it is hard to tell (and as it was written by the director...).

The real shame in all of this is all the actors are so good. Well chosen and correct for the roles they are handling. Peck and Thirlby stand up as equals to their more experienced counterparts and I will be looking out for both these actors in the future.

Direction is also fine and dandy, if a tad slow, and cinematography is excellent too although I had some issues with the use of colour - although I would put that down to personal preference.

The love story(s) in the centre of the film seemed too generic and often the film seemed to be trying to pull the laughs out of the audience rather than concentrate on what was happening in the story. Again the film would have been finer without the audience manipulation there and there is one point early in the movie where you question if our protagonist is going to start speaking to the camera. Something I thought would have made the film more exciting but sadly not the case.

There is nothing wrong with this film but as previously stated nothing new.
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