Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

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.

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".

g-bodyl Charlie Bartlett is this generation's Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It's a sweet, uplifting coming-of-age film that had some social messages and can very well be a true story at most high schools. Granted, this is not the best teen film, but for what it is, it's good and often compelling despite the story skipping around a lot.Jon Poll's film is about a rich guy who has been expelled from every private school so he is enrolled in a public school. Being unpopular at first, he changes that once he becomes the unofficial psychiatrist in the bathroom stall administering drugs. There he receives the negative attention of Principal Gardner and the positive attention of his daughter, Susan.The acting is pretty good. Anton Yelchin delivers a solid performance as Charlie and is pretty convincing. However, the show belongs to Downey Jr. This is his last film before his complete comeback with Iron Man, but he is excellent as the alcoholic Principal Gardner.Overall, this is not the perfect teen film, but it manages to deliver a touching story that will ring true to many high school/college kids out there. It's smartly written and has some fine dialog. The story sometimes skips over the place, but if you can catch up it's no big deal. I rate this film 9/10.

sheile-1 I hate to write a bad review but, without the influence of Todd Phillips's "Road Trip", Wes Anderson's "Rushmore" and Hal Ashby's "Harold and Maude" this film would had never existed. Down to the use of songs like Eels - "Mr. E's Beautiful Blues" from "Road Trip" and "Harold & Maude's" Cat Steven's song "If You Wanna Be Free Be Free".It's pretty much been Done before.Here's a kid, who gets kicked out of an elite prep school, only to join a public school where he sports the garb of his previous schools crested jacket and signs up for a drama class and in the end, the play he created, will unite the characters to a happy ending.I've seen this before... My advice is to see the films I mentioned above first, than let me know if you agree with my review.