Maidgethma Wonderfully offbeat film!

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Scott Mellgren I almost turned off the movie after about 30 minutes. I kept waiting for something to happen. Then I was taken by surprise as I realized that all of a sudden, amazingly... the movie went places. From first love to shrinking the therapist, the movie did a nice job wrapping up all the well written and well played characters. Ben Kingsley was brilliant as usual. The evolution of the main character was superb as a coming of age film. Turned out all right.It took most of the movie to reveal what the heck "wackness" even means. Here's a comparison: The theory of Dopeness vs. Wackness. Dope people are loose, laid back, abuse substances, and tend to be stuck in a routine. Wack people are high-strung, stress riding, self esteem doubting, and optimistic about change.This film is set in 1994. The soundtrack is loaded down with period music, primarily driven by hip hop (or rap... depending on how old you are) but augmented with some classic gems. I'm not a fan of hip hop, but it wasn't a problem for me to still enjoy the movie. The themes of tagging, partying, drugging, and "hip hop" language seemed a little forced at times, but really captured the nineties.For a slow start, and minimal sub plots with no significant conflicts, I'll give it 8 out of 10.Rated R for pervasive drug use, language and some sexuality.http://fcmclub.blogspot.com/2010/04/wackness-2008.html

dregueiras You know when you have a moment not in, but from your life? This is the moment if you were a teenager in the 90's. I'm not even a lover of hip-hop, I lean to metal/post-punk, but this, I don't need high school friends , sometimes I get lonely I guess, and then a tape, a motherf****** tape, goes in there, (either hip-hop or Nintendo), your heart stops, reboots, and your life reboots , younger, fuller, happier, facing yourself many years ago, this is a film that will teach you what you missed and what you've gained from the doing and not doing at the time. This is you, choosing your life at the time, and if outside of the loop, choosing your life before or after. Best teenager movie of all time.

Matthew McNaughton I first saw this a few years ago and didn't like it that much, but I watched it again and I am a much bigger fan. Olivia Thirlby is amazing, and while she and Josh Peck didn't have much chemistry that was the point. First loves have a way of making even the smart man naive. Ben Kingsley was creepy as ish, but he made an excellent psychiatrist.It was refreshing to see a movie that didn't have a happy ending, though I do wish that Shapiro would have moved out for college. I liked the interactions between him and his 'customers' and I just love thinking about Eleanor and Squires together. I'd definitely recommend this to anyone who wants to see a good movie about a broken heart.

rooprect Don't waste your life on this movie. Don't even waste your life on my review of this movie. Save yourself before it's too late.Alas, you're still here. So you might as well readREASONS TO HATE THIS MOVIE#1 The main character's lower lip. What's up with that? It's like the kid just got shot with 10cc of novocaine, and throughout the movie his lower lip is hanging like a flat tire flapping on the road. I suppose this look was supposed to be cool back in 1994. The I-don't-care-cuz-I-just-got-back-from-the-dentist look. But to me it just doesn't fly. Nor is it 'fly'. Which brings us to #2 The goofy, contrived 'urban slang' like using "dope" as an adjective ("Haydn is dope, man!") or using "mad" as an adverb ("You're mad outta my league!" or "It's mad hot!") and the real kicker... pronouncing "all right" as "aaigh". Bear in mind, these aren't kids from the hood we're watching. These are park avenue rich kids trying to act 'phat'. More like 'pstupid'. Normally I can let some exaggerated dialects slip by, but this movie pounds us with it mercilessly, and it really becomes distracting.#3 The preposterous lead character. We begin with the star of the movie (flat tire lipman) who is a college-bound rich kid who is also a big time drug dealer and yet he's as sweet & innocent as Beaver Cleaver, just wants to help his parents pay the rent (on their park avenue flat), and just wants to get his first girlfriend. Did I mention he's a virgin also? Yes, a rich, drug-dealing, wholesome virgin. In New York City. It would be hilarious if this were a Jerry Lewis flick, but no, I think we're really supposed to take the character seriously. Ben Kingsley himself plays a pretty bizarre creature (a rich, uptown psychiatrist who has the mental age & morals of a horny 16-year-old), but in the case of Kingsley's character, it's definitely meant as a comic device, and for that reason I actually consider Kingsley to be one of the reasons to love this film, see below.#4 The hamfisted & hypocritical message that recreational drugs are cool but prescription drugs are square. I'm not sure if the writers were being deliberately ironic, but I really don't think so. Weed is cool. Ritalin is not. That's the moral of the story.OK, now that you've heard the biggest reasons for hating the movie, I'll tell you my...(very few) REASONS FOR LIKING THIS MOVIE#1 Ben Kingsley. As I said above, his character is so bizarre you just have to accept it as comedy and be entertained. His character on screen was 100% entertaining to me, but unfortunately (contrary to his top billing) Kingsley was only a supporting actor, second fiddle to flat tire lipman.#2 Semi-surreal moments of artistic expression. There were a few short scenes where the movie dumped its realistic façade and slipped into tongue-in-cheek genius. For example, there's one scene where the hero, feeling on top of the world, starts dancing on the sidewalk as it lights up like in Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" video. There were also 1 or 2 memorable dream sequences. I think these short scenes were the saving grace of an otherwise commonplace film.Other than that, this movie sucks so hard they should use it to clean up the BP oil spill.