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Charlie Bartlett (2007)

Director: Jon Poll

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From Time Out London

Turfed out of a prestigious fee-paying establishment for selling fake IDs, troubled teen Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) rolls up to a suburban high school in a posh blazer and promptly gets a kicking. Finding a new role as the establishment’s purveyor of prescription anti-depressants and psychiatric counsel, he’s soon on the road to acceptance, though his rocky relationship with the stressed, drink-addled principal (Robert Downey Jr) may not be helped by the fact he’s dating the latter’s Goth-ish daughter (Kit Dennings).

With its smart-aleck protagonist and adolescent-rebellion theme, this slightly smug offering conjures up comparisons with ‘Ferris Bueller’ and ‘Rushmore’ which it can’t sustain. Its strained effort to cover lots of character bases (absent faather, blithely distant mum Hope Davis) actually serves to dissipate rather than concentrate matters. This is on the pleasant side of underwhelming, nonetheless, and master Yelchin does well by a character who should be perfectly throttlable.

Author: Trevor Johnston

Time Out London Issue 1969, May 15-21, 2008

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User reviews of this film

usman khawaja said...

Posted on May 17 2008 02:06 mr.johnston is very true ,despite some good acting this movie throttles itself with implausible situations ,pretentiously smart lines ,comic cliches,predictably predictable jokes and it 's worst crime is to treat drug abuse with prescription drugs =ritaline and xanex as they were smarties and the medical profession as moronic -it was sporadically funny ,wellacted but a let-down -what a shame as the cast was promising .

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