Scott BresslerCharlie Bartlett
Rating: 2.5/5
Director: Jon Poll
Starring: Anton Yelchin, Robert Downey Jr., Hope Davis
“Charlie Bartlett” feels like the kind of movie that would result if aliens tried to make a film about modern teenage life after having watched only “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Rushmore” and “Degrassi: The Next Generation.” All three offer great source material and the resulting film has a few specific moments of glorious, hilarious truth. But the humanity is missing, as well as basic common sense concerning high school social structure, the legal system and the effects of Ritalin.
Charlie Bartlett has just been kicked out of prep school for making fake IDs, an indiscretion the movie tends to think is a more serious transgression, and somehow a cuter one, than it would actually be at an elite private boarding school. Charlie is brilliant and his parents are extremely wealthy, but he’s been kicked out of every school he’s ever attended. He keeps his expulsion letters on the wall like honorary plaques. Everywhere he goes, he attempts to raise a rallying cry for teenage rebellion and manages to annoy the administration, all to achieve his goal of becoming the most popular kid in school.
So at his new public school, he finds a new way to reach the student body: drugs. No, not your daddy’s illicit drugs. No, no grass or blow for Charlie Bartlett. He goes after the good stuff: prescription drugs. Charlie uses his family’s infinite resources and his mother’s neurotic flightiness (portrayed nicely by Hope Davis) to set up appointments with dozens of psychiatrists. He fakes symptoms; they prescribe him his supply. Then, he passes the product on to a public that wants, and in some cases needs, his product. He also offers free counseling in the boy’s bathroom to anyone with problems, whether they’re buying or not.
But how does he get the student body to trust him? On his first day of classes he showed up in a blazer still emblazoned with his last school’s crest and made enemies with the school’s resident bully/drug source. How did Charlie Bartlett become the most popular kid in school, the one everyone wants to pour their hearts out to, the one who’s constantly challenging the system with the support of the student body?
That’s where my problem with this movie starts. It cheats. He’s the nerdy new kid and then, overnight, he’s the guy everyone looks to in their fight with the administration, represented in this movie by the disinterested Principal Gardner (Robert Downey Jr.). Granted, on his first night as dealer, he gets the entire school high at a dance, turning it into an epic rave rife with thumping music, ecstatic students and girls all too willing to strip off and go running through the halls naked. Did he dose everybody with E? No, Ritalin.
Aside from the ignorance (or exaggeration) of Ritalin’s side effects, isn’t it hard to believe that that particular drug isn’t already widely prevalent at a high school in the 21st century? What was the resident bully/drug source selling before Charlie arrived? Are all those local news reports about teenagers abusing prescription drugs that off base? Did Charlie Bartlett step into a time warp back to a dimension when our teens weren’t overmedicated?
The rest of the movie falls flat because Charlie’s popularity is predicated on a lie. He wasn’t even the one selling the Ritalin, he did it through a middle man. How do the students know it was him? This sequence only serves as an easy way to get Charlie popular so the film can progress. It’s underhanded and completely false.
There are some bright spots beneath the murky logic that make the movie worth sticking with, once engaged. Anton Yelchin plays Charlie Bartlett very well with moments of brilliance, making us believe that this kid is really quite smart, but dumb enough to believe his scams are benefiting the student body. One moment in particular stands out. Charlie sits at the piano with his new girlfriend (*gulp* it’s Principal Gardner’s daughter) telling her a straight-faced whopper about how his dad was killed by an ice cream truck. He then belts out a screeching verse of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” so vivaciously the audience gasped before laughing. It’s a moment of truth in a sea of falsehoods.
Robert Downey Jr. is always a treat as the friendly but troubled Principal Gardner, who helps Charlie work through his real problems while trying to keep the little drug dealer away from his little girl. Certain scenes are exuberant and hilarious, and many problems of teen life that normally never see light are addressed head on. Popularity is a concern for most teens that is often whitewashed by after-school specials telling everyone just to be themselves, but it’s a problem that deserves better treatment.
The plot machinations, while often surprising, are so transparent they undercut the heavy themes and irreverent humor. The movie never finds footing and stumbles along helplessly, as if in a Xanex-induced stupor.
I can’t imagine that has anything to do with director Jon Poll, who here makes his feature debut, but has found time in his past to serve as editor on such tightly-cut classics as “Dunston Checks In,” “The Beautician and the Beast” and “Death to Smoochy.” What he’s done is made a film that offers genuinely funny moments that remind us of our own high school experiences, while hoping we don’t remember enough to call him out on his crap.