USA,
2007, 110 min
Shown in 2008
CREDITS
- dir
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Jonathan Levine
- prod
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Joe Neurauter, Keith Calder, Felipe Marino
- scr
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Jonathan Levine
- cam
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Petra Korner
- editor
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Josh Noyes
- mus
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David Torn
- cast
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Josh Peck, Ben Kingsley, Famke Janssen, Olivia Thirlby, Mary Kate Olsen, Method Man
- source
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Sony Pictures Classics, 550 Madison Ave, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10022. EMAIL: info@spe.sony.com
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COMMENTS
SFIFF51 Centerpiece film. Director Jonathan Levine in attendance.
OTHER
A hip-hop–loving Upper East Side outcast forms an unlikely alliance with his drug-addled psychiatrist in this clever mix of private school and old school, an audience favorite at the Sundance Film Festival and the only chance (hopefully) to see Ben Kingsley make out with Mary Kate Olsen. “I’m mad depressed, yo,” pipes Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck), a teenage delinquent hoping to survive Giuliani-era New York City while trying to get laid, finish high school and deal weed out of an ice cream cart. Fortunately, Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley) is ready to sympathize. Like Luke, he’s depressed, girl-obsessed and drug-dependent (even happy to trade sessions for dope). Better still, he’s got a hot daughter, Stephanie (Olivia Thirby), who surprises us by inviting Luke to the family’s summer home after her parents take off to Barbados—an offer that promises to lead to if not hot summer nights, at least some lively ones. Director Jonathan Levine (whose debut, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane, was the cult hit of the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival) benefits from the appealing performances of his younger cast members, especially Thirby’s worldly Stephanie and Peck’s slack-jawed Luke. But it’s veteran Ben Kingsley as the doped-up doctor who truly astonishes. Whether dispensing highly questionable advice or necking with a barely legal Manhattanite (Olsen), Kingsley’s unhinged headshrinker turns the film on its end, proving that no matter how young or old, some men are always sadly and hilariously the same.
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FACTOID #27
A surrealist stop-motion animator, the Czech Jan Svankmajer, was the first recipient of the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision Award in 1997. The POV Award honors the lifetime achievement of a filmmaker who works outside of feature-length narrative filmmaking.
