Charlie Bartlett is one of the few teen films that gets it. Being a teen isn’t a laugh a minute affair where everybody looks like Sean William Scott or Freddie Prinze Jr.. It’s also not the manic, fantasy of Superbad. Kids smoke. Kids drink. Kids die in stupid, stupid ways, and some kids kill themselves. Childhood and adolescence isn’t really a comedy, it’s a lonely and confusing place.

Most teen films gloss over these elements, white washing it and adding a token black kid. Maybe some kids lives are like this, but my adolescence looked a lot more like a Larry Clark film than a John Hughes affair. It was scary, violent, visceral, sexual and exciting. And though it carries a strong dose of fantasy wish fulfillment, Charlie Bartlett gets most of these tragicomic elements of teen life right.

Charlie Bartlett is a story about finding out who you are. It’s also a film about selling drugs, giving unlicensed therapy, outwitting bullies, throwing wild parties, rioting, and getting the girl. In it’s short running time the film manages to capture the feeling of a school year. The way that one scheme leads into another, the way that a note with a heart on it turns into heavy petting in the backseat of a car, the way enemies become friends, and the way that at the end of 9 months you feel like an entirely different person.

The film starts out as a yarn about the titular character, Charlie. Charlie is not a well-liked kid. He doesn’t know how to fit in or how to make friends. He’s nervous around girls and he gets swirl-ied a lot.* He comes from a rich family with a disaffected mother and an absentee father. He’s also been kicked out of every private school in the state because of his rule breaking schemes. All he wants is to make friends and for most of his life, he’s only ever made friends by getting them fake IDs. Once Charlie arrives at his new public high school, he finds himself in a whole new chalkboard jungle.

What starts out as a way to get the school bully to stop picking on Charlie ends up as a full-scale drug dealing empire. This evolves into an amateur therapy endeavor, as well as a school play production. Along the way, Charlie becomes the most popular kid in school, resolves his family problems, prevents a kid from committing suicide, loses his virginity, stops his girlfriend from smoking, solves her family problems and starts a social protest movement.

I have no idea how to adequately summarize this film. It has more plot elements and twists and turns than all 4 seasons of The OC. But, the overstuffed nature of the film is part of its’ charm. Everything happens at once and it’s hard to keep up, but the attentive viewer is richly rewarded with layered characters and charismatic performances.

Anton Yelchin, is incredibly likeable as Charlie. His chemistry with Kat Dennings, goes a long way towards making some of the more far fetched elements of the story work. Meanwhile Dennings does a superb job playing against Robert Downey Jr., matching his screen presence in every scene. Hope Davis, is funny as Charlie’s distant mother, even if she is a bit underused. The rest of the cast, made up of relative unknowns is also generally above par. The story gets a bit out there by the end, but the emotional resonance of the characters keeps things from getting too absurd.

And while there are many problems with the film, including several bizarre and illogical choices by characters, a general misunderstanding of teenage social class stratification, and a complete lack of speaking parts for minority characters,** the overwhelming good natured vibe that the film gives off more than makes up for these.

THE DVD

Fox sent me a screener copy of this disc. Consequently, half the bonus features are missing and the picture and sound quality were not up to full DVD standard.

The features that were present were quite good, however.

The commentary with the film’s stars and the director moves along at a breezy pace. Kat Denning comes off as very crush worthy and Yelchin seems like a good guy. The director is clearly very proud of his work.

The making of is fairly standard, but somewhat illuminating.

The disc also has a bunch of other features that weren’t on the disc that Fox sent me. They include bloopers, deleted scenes, and a second commentary track.

CONCLUSION.

Charlie Bartlett is a surprisingly honest and emotional look at teenage life. It’s funny and heart felt. Worth a rental at the very least.

HIGHLY RECCOMENDED for fans of the genre.

RECCOMENDED for everyone else.

*I’ve never seen or heard of this happening in real life, but every teen film about geeks seems to feature it.  

**There are, by my count, 2 black characters in the film. They stand side by side in the background of some group shots.