Movies You Probably Missed: The Wackness

I came across the The Wackness randomly at Blockbuster one night searching for ways to burn an evening. Being a relatively slow season, there wasn’t much else out at the time and I eventually settled on this. Fortune smiles on all of us from time to time and, in this instance, an inconspicuous movie on the shelf would become my favourite coming-of-age movie of all time.

The year is 1994. In the opening scene we are introduced to the two main characters: Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck), a soon-to-be high school graduate selling pot to put himself through college, and Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley), a psychiatrist in full midlife crisis mode. The two strike up an unlikely friendship; Luke is an awkward loner and accepts therapy sessions from Dr. Squires as payment for his wares.

What develops is one of the most absurdly genuine on-screen friendships I’ve ever witnessed. Despite the implausibility of their companionship, it is easy to believe that they really care about each other – no homo.  They share as much good advice with each other as bad, and it becomes increasingly difficult to ascertain who is a worse influence on the other. For Luke, this is the summer of love and the situation gets predictably complex when he falls for Squires’s stepdaughter, Stephanie. As for Squires, he’s obviously unhappy with his life and his marriage is falling apart. We laugh, but it is bittersweet.

What struck me about The Wackness is how easy it is to relate to the characters; heartbreak and existential crises are common threads in any boy’s journey into manhood. Jonathan Levine, who wrote and directed the film, displays a fundamental understanding of adolescence and manhood in general: the loneliness, frustration, uncertainty, and, above all else, the horniness.  

The movie forces us to accept, or at least acknowledge, that sometimes love is meant to be lost and that, often, getting older doesn’t mean you’ve gotten any wiser. There aren’t really any solutions offered here, perhaps because real life is like that: there are no easy answers and no quick fixes to your problems. Dr. Squires seems to be acutely aware of this; near the end of the movie he chooses not to humour Luke with life lessons, instead telling him to “fuck a black girl, I never had the chance.”

Josh Peck and Ben Kingsley display real chemistry and play off of each other well. Other notable performances include Famke Janssen as Squires’s passive-aggressive wife, and Olivia Therby as Stephanie, Squires’s stepdaughter and Shapiro's object of desire. There are also cameo appearances by Method Man and one of the Olsen twins (though I really don’t care which one).

Additionally, the soundtrack deserves special mention; mid-90s east coast hip hop is dear to my heart and its utilization really sets the mood well. In an early scene Luke is sitting in a subway train with his headphones on. Luke smirks, “The World is Yours” comes on and suddenly the train is filled with curvacious dancers flaunting their goods as the opening credits come onscreen. It was the film equivalent of having me at “hello”.