The Wackness

In the sweltering summer of 1994, Giuliani is scouring New York City within an inch of its life, hip-hop is permeating white youth culture, and a pot-dealing loser kid, Luke Shapiro, is trying to figure out how to solve his parents insolvency, beat depression, and get laid before pushing off to college. Luckily hes got a nifty deal with a psychiatrist, Dr. Squires, who trades him therapy sessions for weed. It happens that the oddball doctors marriage is crumbling, so the twoone in late adolescence, the other in late middle-ageembark on messy passages into new life stages. As Luke falls for a classmate who just happens to be Squiress daughter, the summer heats up, and he follows doctors orders, learning to coexist with pain and make it part of him, rather than let it become his downfall.

The Wackness plays like the luscious rush of first love, discovering great new music, meeting amazing personalities who impart the meaning of life, and realizing what youre made of. Perfectly capturing the textures of 1990s Manhattan and the zeitgeist of worldly, yet emotionally unformed, private-school students forced to parent their parents, director Jonathan Levine conveys a whimsy, toobuoyed by the dazzlingly funny Ben Kingsley and unexpected stylistic flourishesthat gives the films insights and idiosyncrasies big, glorious, flapping wings.