GusF Taking its cue from John Hughes classics such as "The Breakfast Club" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", this is a very good coming of age comedy-drama. It has a rather strong, clever and often insightful script by Gustin Nash and the material is well handled by Jon Poll in his directorial debut. The film is not entirely original but that has never bothered me if the relevant plot devices are used effectively, which is the case here. The script deals with the issues that many teens face on a daily basis well and it does not hesitate to highlight the fact that many adults are as screwed up and confused as the younger generation, more so in some cases. Even though there are things in the film that do not really ring true, the characters nevertheless seem more like real people than those in the less intelligent, raunchier teen films of the 2000s and beyond, some of which I have to say that I do like.The film stars Anton Yelchin in an excellent performance as the title character, a 17-year-old aspiring entrepreneur who has been kicked out of every private school in the US worth mentioning and a few more besides. The scheme that got him kicked out of his last school was the operation a laminating press in his dorm room for the purposes of making fake driving licences so he's nothing if not enterprising. Seeing as she has tried everything else, his mother decides to send him to the public school West Summit High School in their hometown. Charlie is a fiercely intelligent, friendly and charming boy but, like many teenagers, he craves popularity and believes that his stunts are the best way to go about achieving it. His situation is further complicated by the fact that his mother Marilyn, played wonderfully by Hope Davis, is recovering from severe depression - triggered by his father's imprisonment for tax evasion - and often seems to be in another world. As such, Charlie is forced to be the adult and take care of her, which means that he is missing out the traditional teen experience in many ways. This may account for the fact that he is a little, in his words, abnormal but, then again, most people are. Yelchin is a great actor and I loved his work in the miniseries Taken and other television series when he was younger so it's nice to finally see him in a film that I not only enjoyed but didn't hate. After becoming high on Ritalin which was prescribed to him to control his non-existent ADD, Charlie gets a bit of a brainwave. He decides to go into business with the school bully Murphy Bevins and sell prescription drugs such as Xanax and Zoloft to the student body. In order to obtain them, he tells various psychiatrists that he is suffering from a range of disorders. He also sets up a counselling service in the boys' bathroom where he dispenses advice as well as drugs. One thing that I loved about the film is that it did not hesitate to examine the consequences of Charlie's actions whereas a lesser one would have skirted around the issue or even ignored it altogether. I have no doubt that his intentions were good but he is not a trained professional. The danger of giving out prescription drugs when you do not fall into that category is well illustrated when the incredibly depressed Kip Crombwell attempts suicide by overdosing on the anti-depressants provided to him by Charlie. After this, Charlie decides to end his drug business but continues with the counselling service free of charge as he believes that it is the right thing to do.Robert Downey, Jr. is superb as the school principal Nathan Gardner, a bitter alcoholic whose life took a turn for the worse when he found out that his wife was having an affair. His professional life isn't all sunshine and lollipops either since he was much happier when he was a history teacher who was not burdened with the same level of responsibility. Downey is always at his best when he is playing damaged characters and this is no exception. Kat Dennings is good as the principal's daughter and Charlie's obligatory love interest Susan but this was probably the least interesting and most clichéd part of the film so I wish that it had not been given quite as much attention. Tyler Hilton is great as Murphy, who eventually becomes friends with Charlie as opposed to merely his business partner. The bully displays a softer side when he admits that he would like to go on an actual date with the queen bee Whitney Drummond rather than simply have sex with her. The film also features good performances from Derek McGrath as Superintendent Sedgwick and Mark Rendall as Kip. One good indication of the fact that it was shot in Toronto is the presence of not one but three stars of "Degrassi: The Next Generation", to which I am addicted: Jake Epstein (the best actor on the series whom I would have liked to have seen in a bigger role here), Lauren Collins and Aubrey Graham (better known these days as the rapper Drake).Overall, this is a very enjoyable film. Much like the admittedly considerably better "Crimes and Misdemeanors", its message is essentially that life can and often is unfair but it is worth living for the moments of happiness that it offers.

Bene Cumb I have casually watch movies for/by younger people, and even when I was much younger, I have to admit that I seldom liked them. They tend to be full of clichés and contradistinction of the rich and the poor, nerds and party animals, i.e. lots of black-and-white approaches. Well, the movie in question is not totally free of them, but thanks to good performances (particularly Anton Yelchin as Charlie Bartlett and Robert Downey, Jr. as Nathan Gardner) and some new angles in the story make the movie rather enjoyable to follow - in spite of the fact that I have serious doubts about the tangibility of the events and background; is it possible to hold such a school in the US?Anyway, quite a good movie, recommended to watch - unless you hate Yelchin or Downey, Jr. :)

tieman64 Hal Ashby directed "Harold and Maude" in 1971, a little masterpiece about a depressed teenager called Harold. Disillusioned with the world (religion, nationalism, work, wealth, consumerism, capitalism, the military, school, family etc), Harold resorts to suicidal flights of fancy. He's rehabilitated when he meets Maude, an elderly Holocaust survivor.Directed by Jon Poll, and based on a screenplay by Gustin Nash, "Charlie Bartlett" references "Harold and Maude" several times. Like Ashby's film, it also revolves around a depressed teenager with a wealthy but absent father. In this case his name is Charlie (Anton Yelchin), a mopey teen who moves into a new high-school. Here he meets hundreds of kids who, like him, struggle to cope with various pressures and problems. Charlie helps them all by starting a psychiatrist's booth in a school bathroom.Screenwriter Gustin Nash's father is a psychiatrist. Nash's script, though, uses psychiatry to make a larger point: a damaged generation of adults have abandoned a damaged generation of kids. In "Charlie Bartlett", these kids metaphorically become their own therapists at best, at worst their own self-medicators. Adults remain on the sidelines, watching as kids run damage control."Madness is not a natural, but a political, category," philosopher Mark Fisher once wrote, "what is needed now is a politicization of much more common disorders." Whilst "Charlie Bartlett" is honest about teenage despair, suicide, addiction, authoritarianism, and the way in which society increasingly medicates for maladies, it doesn't really touch upon the roots of such things. Where better teen comedies ("Ghost World", "Pump Up the Volume", "Harold and Muade") delve into the systemic, psycho-socio-economic causes of these problems, "Charlie Bartlett" recoils. Teenage despair, here, is simply a result of being misunderstood and/or unpopular."Charlie Bartlett" stars Anton Yelchin in the titular role. Unconventionally cool, his performance evokes the teen comedies of the 1980s ("Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Say Anything", "The Sure Thing" etc). Hope Davis plays Charlie's mother, a woman who, like all the adults in Nash's script, hides behind addictions whilst her son is called upon to "be an adult" and so "handle" things which no kid should have to. Elsewhere Tyler Hilton plays a school bully, his role subtly referencing 1979's "Over the Edge", another flick about abandoned teens. The film co-stars Robert Downey Junior - himself once an alcoholic - as an alcoholic school principal. A sultry Kat Dennings plays Bartlett's love interest.8/10 – See "Ghost World", "Pump Up The Volume", "The Spectacular Now", "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", "The King of Pigs", Godard's "Le Chinoise" and Bresson's "The Devil Probably".

Lloyd Bayer If you cried over Anton Yelchin in "Alpha Dog", you will most probably adore him as Charlie Bartlett. As the title character, he plays a rich kid with a fantasy of becoming the most popular student in high school. The means he adopts to achieve this goal often gets him expelled from exclusive private schools. The most recent being mass production of fake driver's licenses. His aristocrat mother (Hope Davis) is left with no choice but to send him to the community public school. At first he suffers a culture shock and even painfully faces the school bully, an act that is now cliché in high school related films. A black eye later, Charlie decides to handle the situation himself, by setting up a make-shift stall handing out prescription medication and counseling those in need. This stunt not only makes him highly popular over night, yet wins the affection of the principal's daughter, much to the dismay of the principal himself thereby becoming Charlie's only opposition.A thin line exists between comedy and drama as the film deals with common high school issues like bullying, acceptance versus depression, peer pressure and ultimately parent-child relationships. It also deals with the modern crisis of unchecked domestic drug usage and substance abuse.In what seems like a career boosting role, Yelchin even surpasses Robert Downy Jr as Principal Gardner, exhibiting a variety of skills in singing, dancing and comedy, even show casing his abilities in fight scenes along side romance. Downey Jr accurately portrays an over protective father struggling to raise a defiant teenager while giving in to alcoholism, a parallel reality he is said to have finally overcome.This film will appeal to mature teenagers, though parental caution is recommended. Parents too can learn a thing or two about what their kids are capable of, if things go unsupervised. At the core, "Charlie Bartlett" is a heart felt story that transcends Yelchin from a child actor into bigger roles as an adult.