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His name is Charlie Bartlett, and he’s a Ferris Bueler for the 21st century, filtered through the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, Part II.” There’s a good-natured, if a bit fantastical, subversion at work in the 17
-year-old achieving the popularity he desires by faking (more or less) mental illnesses, such as depression and anxiety, and selling the drugs prescribed to him by psychiatrists to schoolmates. Bringing to mind a smarter, more savvy and compassionate Lucy from Peanuts, the twist is that the doctor really is in, with an office in the boys’ restroom instead of a rickety stand. Bartlett isn’t so much a drug dealer as an impromptu counselor to youths alienated from the school system and each other. Fantastical, indeed, but also a novel update – and not merely a rip-off – of the ‘80s high school comedy genre.
Physician, Heal Thyself
However much Charlie is the means by which his fellow students confront the usual suspects of teenage challenges – sex, social isolation and so on –“Charlie Bartlett” ultimately draws on the notion of “physician, heal thyself.” Bartlett’s carefree popularity belies a home life defined by an absentee father and a well-intentioned but hapless mother hopped up on anti-depressants. Behind irrepressible charm eminently worthy of Matthew Broderick – Anton Yelchin is a phenomenally exuberant young talent – lies a sensitive and self-aware angst. Bartlett is likeable, a quality helped immeasurably by the lack of malice in his pranks and the filmmakers’ aim for the lighter side of black comedy. Maybe “Charlie Bartlett” is an example of grey comedy; not morbid, lurid, bleak or vicious enough for black comedy, but not quite morally pristine and pure-of-heart either.
Jon Poll could have directed, with polished unobtrusiveness, an extended sit-com – Bartlett the schemer leading a parade of comically dysfunctional peers across the screen while watching over a slightly loopy mom and resenting a jailbird dad. But the film is funny without sacrificing a deep sympathy for its troubled characters. Robert Downey Jr. is a tremendous asset here in the role of an alcoholic principal whose fragile relationship with his daughter – Bartlett’s love interest – is held together by the sympathy he invokes. Another asset: Screenwriter Gustin Nash deftly keeps everything in balance, never neglecting the dramatic law that actions have consequences. Unlike a cartoon, where everything happens for a gag and even the worst behaviour entails no equal and opposite reaction, “Charlie Bartlett” doesn’t give its comic premise a free and unexamined ride. There are layers to the film, and while the message, whatever it might be, won’t cause earthquakes, “Charlie Bartlett” succeeds in offering memorable characters in a meaningful and often hysterically funny story.
Entertainment Value: ** (out of two)
Technical Quality: ** (out of two)
Charlie Bartlett. Written by Gustin Nash. Directed by Jon Poll. Starring Anton Yelchin, Robert Downey, Jr., Kat Dennings, Hope Davis and Tyler Hilton. 97 minutes. Rated R (for language, drug content and nudity).
