4.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, sexual candor, mild profanity and brief drug content
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.19.13
We don’t necessarily realize this
right away, but the battle lines are drawn in this film’s opening scene: War
has been declared, and no quarter will be given.
Sadly, our adversaries are badly
mismatched, which the villain of this piece knows full well. And he’s perfectly
willing to reduce his opponent to emotional rubble.
The Way, Way Back is one of the
best coming-of-age tales ever caught on film: a captivating blend of snarky
comedy and heartbreaking pathos that evokes pleasant memories of Summer of
’42, Stand by Me and other classics of the genre. This project is cast to
perfection, with every actor — in parts large or small — making the most of the
sharp script from writer/directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.
Very few films leave us wanting
more, as the screen darkens, the lights come up, and we regretfully abandon our
seats. I didn’t want this one to end. Indeed, I wanted to watch it again, if
only to catch some of the dialogue that was buried beneath the laughter coming
from last week’s delighted preview audience.
The action takes place in the
summer beach community of Marshfield, Mass., and the surrounding area on
Boston’s South Shore. Although the setting is contemporary — only because we
spot smart phones and ear buds — the locale feels oddly timeless, as is
appropriate for the narrative. Youthful angst knows no specific era; the
desperation of adolescents struggling for maturity has been relevant ever since
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
This anywhen atmosphere is
further amplified by Water Wizz, the somewhat dilapidated water park that plays
such an important role in these events. (It’s no set; Water Wizz is a fully
operational, mom-and-pop operation in East Wareham, Mass.) Back in the day,
Hollywood sometimes used traveling carnivals and circuses as settings for
coming-of-age sagas; fading theme parks seem to have become the modern equivalent.
I’d love to see this new film on
a double bill with 2009’s under-rated Adventureland, which has a similarly
nostalgic vibe, although its protagonist is a bit older. Now, that would be a
grand night at the movies.
Anyway...
Fourteen-year-old Duncan (Liam
James) has been dragged along for a summer “vacation” at the beach house owned
by his divorced mother Pam’s (Toni Collette) overbearing boyfriend, Trent
(Steve Carell). To say that Trent is a calculating bully would be
understatement; he views Duncan as a potential impediment toward his pursuit of
Pam — an absolutely accurate appraisal — and snatches every opportunity to
crush the boy’s already fragile spirit.
Carell should play bad guys more
often; he’s really good at it. We want to smack the condescending smirk off
Trent’s face the moment we meet him, and it just gets worse. Carell modulates
his line deliveries so that only Duncan detects the underlying disdain;
everybody else in the room believes that Trent is trying his best to “get
along” with the “obstinate” boy.
The dialogue is note-perfect;
Faxon and Rash have an almost scary talent for capturing the way cheerfully ruthless
adults can wreak havoc with an adolescent’s disorienting emotions. The
verisimilitude likely results from an author’s core mantra, to “write what you
know.” Rash claims, in the press notes, that he actually endured what became this
movie’s opening scene, when his mother’s second husband played a similar
head-game with him.
No wonder so much of this film’s anguish
feels genuine.
But that’s not to say that Faxon
and Rash have delivered a downer: far from it. True, Duncan’s plight initially
gets worse, as he’s surrounded by the neighbors in this beach resort — well
known to Trent — who take this setting as an excuse for spring-break-ish
hedonism. But the filmmakers ensure that we share Duncan’s view that these
adults are behaving very, very badly ... and that Pam, in her own way desperate
enough to go along, is making a massive mistake.
But Duncan can’t articulate his
own feelings, let alone find a way to offer relationship advice to his mother.
Just about the point we’re ready
to die from the agony of sharing this poor kid’s worst nightmare — each of
Trent’s orchestrated humiliations a bit worse than the previous one — things
improve. A bit. Maybe. Probably.
Summertime next-door neighbor
Betty (Allison Janney), an often inebriated free spirit with absolutely no
filter, is a hot mess whose husband deserted her and their three kids. One of
the latter, Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb), is a mite older than Duncan, but not so
much that she’s unattainable. She also obviously understands the heartbreak of
divided parents; like Pam, Susanna compensates unwisely, in this case by
hitching her fragile psyche to the local “mean girls” led by Trent’s bitchy
daughter, Steph (Zoe Levin).
The immediate circle of adults is
completed by Trent’s longtime friends, Kip and Joan (Rob Corddry and Amanda
Peet), a wealthy couple whose sybaritic tendencies clearly poison the group
dynamic. Joan is just as condescendingly unpleasant toward Pam, if a bit more
artfully, as Trent is to Duncan. Peet is marvelously waspish, with Joan easily
reducing Pam to deer-in-the-headlights uncertainty. We can’t help but shiver.
Duncan finally — mercifully! —
finds respite at Water Whiz, where he comes under the perceptive eye of the
park’s gregarious manager, Owen (Sam Rockwell). Although manifesting the
persona of a goofball motormouth, Owen recognizes a desperate misfit going
under for the third time. A bond is struck: initially fragile, built on
Duncan’s failure to recognize when Owen is joshing him, but soon much, much
stronger.
Owen’s carefree manner
notwithstanding, he’s smart enough to understand the need to proceed very
cautiously with his new young friend.
Sadly, though, Owen doesn’t take
similar care when dealing with Caitlin (the always effervescent Maya Rudolph),
an employee who obviously likes him, but wishes that he’d fer-gawd’s-sake grow
up, already.
Few young actors could survive
being surrounded by such an ensemble cast of scene-stealers, but James rises to
the occasion. That’s not merely impressive; it’s essential. This is Duncan’s
story, and James is in virtually every scene. He perfectly captures Duncan’s
awkward helplessness: the boy’s inability to fence with a cruel authority
figure — Trent — who outmatches him in every respect.
James even delivers silence
unerringly, his expressive face an often tortured tapestry of misery, his words
and emotions so bottled up that he can’t get anything out. It’s a genuinely
sublime performance ... and oh, how we feel this boy’s pain.
Rockwell is a similar revelation.
Although often typecast as a loutish jerk, thanks to varied efforts such as Choke and Seven Psychopaths, those of us who admired his one-man tour-de-force
in 2009’s Moon know that he’s capable of much, much better. His work here
fits that rarefied bill; his reading of Owen is rich and subtle, the character
an engaging blend of gentle “tough love” and spontaneous acts of hilarious
irresponsibility.
And yes, Owen uncorks a seemingly
endless stream of Faxon and Rash’s hilarious one-liners, all delivered with
impeccable timing.
Collette, who always brings her
A-game, gives James a run for his money, as this story’s most tragic figure.
Pam is caught between what she wants, and what she believes she must settle
for: a dynamic most of us recognize all too well. Watch Collette’s face, as Pam
struggles over who to side with, during Trent’s constant verbal duels with
Duncan; she’s a master of subtlety.
Janney is a hoot as Betty, the
archetype of the neighbor who doesn’t understand boundaries, and whose candor
forces everything about her to bleed into everybody else’s life. And yet, her
own personal agonies notwithstanding, Betty is the most honest person in the noxious
little group that Trent assembles ... and, in her own way, probably the
kindest.
Robb deftly handles her quieter
role as Susanna: an island of calm in this roiling ocean of uncontrolled
emotions. River Alexander is a hoot as Peter, Susanna’s younger brother, a
cocky preteen trying to cope with how his mother fusses over his lazy eye.
(Betty’s ill-advised solution: a garish eye patch.)
Finally, Faxon and Rash give
themselves small but memorable acting roles as Water Wizz employees: the former
as Roddy, who controls access to the park’s signature slide tunnel; the latter
as the nerdy Lewis, who staffs a sales shed that nobody visits.
My one complaint: Although Rob
Simonsen’s underscore is reasonably well employed, the intrusive pop songs are
bad choices that work against the film’s tone. They sound like weak Paul Simon
imitations: mawkish and awkwardly sentimental, when the story clearly demands
edgier material.
But that’s a small thing.
Its many delights as a successful
film aside, I also must mention that The Way, Way Back boasts its own
underdog back-story. Faxon and Rash met in 1999 as members of the Los
Angeles-based Groundlings Theater, whose graduates include Paul Reubens,
Kristin Wiig, Will Ferrell and this film’s Maya Rudolph. The two began writing
what became The Way, Way Back almost a decade ago, and their script
eventually wound up on the 2007 “Black List,” an annual compendium of
Hollywood’s best unproduced screenplays.
Then they wrote and won an
Academy Award for 2011’s The Descendants. Thus armed with the clout to revive
their earlier project, they’ve made their directorial debut with The Way, Way
Back. Given the on-screen results, they’re clearly as skilled at extracting
engaging performances, as they are at putting choice words in their characters’
mouths.
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