Rocket Science

Rocket Science is one of those coming-of-age movies that understands the basic premise that coming of age as a teenager is fraught with awkwardness. Indeed, the filmmakers seem so well to understand the concept that they felt comfortable with burdening their already awkward protagonist, Hal Hefner (Reece Daniel Thompson), a slight, skinny little kid from a remarkably (and equally awkward) dysfunctional and broken family, with a pronounced stutter - a condition that plagued writer/director Jeffrey Blitz when he was in school himself - thereby stacking the odds so high that failure at every turn is almost certain for this poor kid.

And that is, in fact, pretty much what happens. The film opens on a debate meet final that goes terribly wrong for über-debater Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick), her subsequent recruitment of Hal as the replacement for the following school year, and the split of Hal’s parents. Fold into this mix Hal’s older brother, who is flirting with being a raving lunatic, and what you have is a station in Hal’s life that is simply unbearable. Unable to express himself as well as he would like because of his stutter, Hal does what he can to soldier on and make the best of growing up in lower-middle-class New Jersey.

Ginny is one of those people we all knew in high school - the one who is good at everything, never fails at anything, and cries when she gets anything less than an A - and Kendrick plays her with a fiery intensity that makes one think of animals in the wild that eat their young. And yet, when she recruits Hal for the debate team, telling him that she espies in him that certain je ne sais quoi which she covets, we actually believe that she sees something that we the audience do not; and we also find ourselves wondering how in the world she is going to pull it off, looking ahead to her success - and Hal’s improbable success - as the movie’s climax.

Alas, this is not to be. The fates of these two characters are destined to diverge - but it will be up to you to find the time to catch this film to see just what happens. There is a point near the end of the film when Ginny attempts to defend what she does to Hal - and this almost tender moment speaks quite eloquently to the quality of character, which is really at the heart of this odd little film. Ginny is set up almost as an anti-hero, but again, this is for the viewer to decide.

The third act is the train wreck, as Hal’s only real hope for normalcy comes crashing down around him - and there are humorous moments sprinkled throughout, though nearly all of them, in keeping with the theme of the film, are to one degree or another awkward. There is this, however - you are not likely ever to see another movie in your life that features two characters engaged in marriage therapy by playing the Violent Femmes song “Blister In The Sun” as a piano and cello duet. Nor are you likely to see too many other movies in which a cello is thrown through a window. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for these quirky little moments - they add a bit of flavor and color to a movie that plays life as awfully bleak and grey sometimes.

By the end of the film, however, one thing has become clear - even though Hal has failed at pretty much everything he has tried, the one thing he has not failed at is continuing to try. There is something built into him that will not allow him to quit, and this is what we see when he talks to his father in the car as the film closes, as Hal closes his eyes and seems to understand that this too - some day - shall pass.

I told Ryan after the movie was over, when he asked me what I thought of it, that I was not sure and that I would have to wait until I had the chance to write about it before I would really know what I thought. Sometimes you like a movie right away, and sometimes you hate a movie right away - many times this is something that you have decided before the credits even roll. Working for Landmark, however, I have had the chance to see a lot of movies - most of which I would otherwise have missed - that I could not make up my mind about immediately after the movie was over. I had to come home and write about them first. This is one of those - and after having written about it, I must conclude that I enjoyed it. It is certainly not the best movie I have ever seen, but it is a fine little film, a brave, thoughtful movie that far too many people are going to miss.

I do hope that there are some good crowds for Rocket Science this weekend, although that is, now, unfortunately, probably going to depend in large part on a positive review printed in the Star on Friday. I don’t have much faith that this will happen - the Star usually prints reivews by Christy Lemire of the Associated Press, and those reviews, for the most part, are less than favorable for the films we show. I was hoping that Ed would have a good review of the film in NUVO this week - but instead there is a decent review of Lady Chatterley, the other film we open this week. I have no real qualms with that, except to say that Lady Chatterley has more of a built-in audience than Rocket Science, due to its being adapted from a literary work; and it stands to benefit less from a positive review than does Rocket Science. Lady Chatterley is almost three hours long, has strong adult themes, and is in French with English subtitles. The people who want to see it are going to want to see it regardless of the reviews, and the running time alone is going to drive away most of the others.

Rocket Science has none of those potential drawbacks and is the kind of film that unsure moviegoers will need to be coaxed into seeing. There are quotes in some of the co-op advertising calling it “this year’s little movie that could,” a very-thinly-veiled reference to last year’s Little Miss Sunshine. I don’t think you can really talk about the two in the same breath - apart from the fact that they both feature quite a lot of F-bombs - but I’m hopeful that that kind of positive energy will get a few more people out to see this film than might otherwise have done.