EssenceStory Well Deserved Praise

Titreenp SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Kirpianuscus it is his film. one of motifs - his partners. the other - a smart script. "Charlie Bartlett" is a film out of categories. sure, it could be defined as comedy, teenager movie, portrait of an age, frame for a great and lovely and not comfortable character. it is a film about a teenager genius. who change schools, mix business with romance, has as the best friend his mother and solutions for every problem of a difficult age. a kind of guru and Ulenspiegel, living on the border between ordinary everyday life and the circle of rich existence. the virtue, the great and basic virtue, remains the art of Yelchin to give a shining hero , ironic and honest, romantic and high example of pragmatism.

SnoopyStyle Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) is a smart rich kid who is new to public school. He's been kicked out of every private school. His father is in prison. He gets picked on but feels above it all. He doesn't fit in until he starts selling his prescriptions to his fellow students. He starts diagnosing them as a self-proclaimed doctor. His mother (Hope Davis) is a mess. Susan (Kat Dennings) is principal Nathan Gardner (Robert Downey Jr.)'s daughter.I'm not usually a fan of Anton Yelchin. He always has a bit of a smirk. That's what comes across with this Charlie Bartlett. He's a bit smug and it's not appealing. He feels above everybody else. If you do it like Ferris Bueller, it's fun. This is not that. I suppose it's a smirky indie. It has its moments. It's nothing hilarious but I did smirk once or twice.

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.

KineticSeoul I can understand what direction it's trying to go but isn't all that absorbing. The plot is about not the average drug dealer and the main reason why he sells drugs is not because of the money but because of popularity. It's starts off alright but loses it's edge as the film progresses and becomes very narrow in a negative way. For a comedy it wasn't funny and the direction and pacing isn't well done, like I said I know what it's trying to do but doesn't really accomplishes that task. Also for the most part this is a very predictable movie with characters that are not memorable. The premise would have been alright but nothing is really absorbing or got my attention, but left me bored most of the way through. Maybe because of the dull and generic direction it takes, it isn't a terrible movie but there are better movies with a similar premise.5.8/10