I am going to say something rather mean a little bit later. So watch for
that.
“The Way, Way Back” was inspired by an experience of Jim Rash, one half
of the writing/directing team behind the movie (the other writer/director is
Nat Faxon). When he was a youngster of 14 his family spent a summer at his
stepfather’s beach house. On the way there his stepfather told him to rate
himself between a 1 and a 10. Little Jim answered 6 thinking it was a safe
number. His stepfather disagreed and said he was more like a 3 and that he
should use the summer as an opportunity to get that number up. What a dick
thing to say and apparently this entire movie is a sort of cinematic revenge
against Jim Rash’s stepfather. The main character Duncan (Liam James) is a
youngster of 14 who is insulted by his stepfather in exactly the same way in
the first scene of the movie. Now I will say the mean thing. Based on the movie
I saw, I think Duncan is about a 3 too.
There is an impressive cast in this movie. Steve Carell and Toni Collete
play Duncan’s parents. Next-door is the hard-drinking town gossip, Allison
Janney and her conveniently attractive teenage daughter played by AnnaSophia
Robb. Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet hang around as friends of friends. And right
down the road is a water park staffed by Sam Rockwell, Maya Rudolph, Jim Rash,
and Nat Faxon. This is as good a cast that anyone can have for a comedy. But
Steve Carell and Rob Corddry, seasoned comedians, are not really given a chance
to tell jokes. Sam Rockwell, an actor who can’t be uninteresting, could be
giving a seminar on why scenes of dialogue don’t work when only one person is
trying. Maya Rudolph continues her lengthy movie streak of severely unwritten
roles. And AnnaSophia Robb perhaps has the hardest job of all but I will get to
that later. The main problem is that the character Duncan is in every scene.
And Duncan is a truly sad and boring presence. He has no interests or hobbies.
He has nothing to say. He is a truly pathetic dancer. His situation with his
father and especially the first scene engenders him a great deal of sympathy,
but as a movie character this can only go so far. At some point he has to prove
himself on the merits of his character. Instead the movie situates the kid in
the midst of cool people that have no particular reason to hang out with him
and have him win certain battles that can come off as contrived. It’s like
watching a youth soccer league give a trophy for “Most Improved” to the worst
player on the last place team. It is an exercise in self-esteem generation with
no concern of whether it is deserved.
I want to make a point of comparison here so it doesn’t seem like I’m
just bashing pale emo kids. In 2008 a movie called “Role Models” came out. It
starred Paul Rudd as a man that was sentenced to 100 hours of community service
as a Big Brother. He gets a kid named Augie, played by Christopher Mintz-Plasse.
Augie is a pale nerdy emo kid with a stepfather and a mother that think he is a
loser. So it is basically the same sort of story. However in “Role Models” Augie
is given a hobby. He enthusiastically participates in a real life medieval role-playing
game named LAIRE. He has made his cape and costume. He is practicing his sword
moves. He knows so much about it that it is successfully demonstrated that he
is involved in something very fun and interesting. So by the end of the movie
when Paul Rudd gets mad at Augie’s parents and says he would be “psyched” to have
a kid like Augie, the scene really works. It is not an exercise in self-esteem
inflation. Augie really is a great kid. “The Way, Way Back” merely has a series
of characters, mainly his stepfather and a series of girls that are
unnecessarily mean to Duncan. But merely having some characters being mean to
another character does not make the latter likable. It makes the latter
pitiable.
Which takes us back to the impossible job of AnnaSophia Robb, the hot
girl next door, who is tasked with finding some reason any reason for being the
romantic interest in this story. I pity her perhaps the most. I think it was a
very good thing that the writers decided to make her sullen and boring too
because if a vibrant enjoyable girl fell in love with Duncan I think I would
actually be annoyed to the point of anger. Once, just once, I want to see a
movie about a teenage loser that does not somehow get the most beautiful girl
in town to fawn all over him. I know Jim Rash did not get any action when he
was 14. Why did he decide to write such this girl of cliché into his story?
There is also a problem with much of the humor in the story, which is
generally mean. This usually would not be a problem but it is in this case
given Duncan’s main personality trait as a kid being unnecessarily picked on.
Let’s take a scene that the creators apparently found so funny that they put it
in every single movie trailer. At the largest water slide in the park an
attendant played by middle aged Nat Faxon is in charge of spacing out the kids
going the slide. He likes to play a joke in which he deliberately makes teenage
girls wait to start for an inordinately long time so he can ogle them in their
bikinis. Duncan gets a job at the water park and later on he pulls the exact
same prank. If the whole thing about this movie is that it is uncool for people
to be unnecessarily mean to Duncan, why is Duncan presented as cool when he is being
unnecessarily mean to other people. In fact, there is a character (played by
Jim Rash) in here whose sole purpose is to be mercilessly made fun of by the
entire water park staff. This is admittedly consistently funny because Jim Rash
is consistently funny but that doesn’t mean it isn’t hypocritical, a concept of
which this movie seems to be completely unaware. Guess what? That is bad
writing and I am going to double down on what I said about the writing team of
Nat Faxon and Jim Rash in my review of “The Descendants.” They are not
particularly good at what they do. I don’t care if they just won an Oscar for
it.
