Review of Charlie Bartlett (2008) by Ola G — 05 Sep 2009

Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) is a rich kid with an adjustment problem. He keeps on doing on the side activities that finds him expelled time after time from expensive prep schools. Part of the adjustment problem is based on his father being in prison for tax evasion and his mother being slightly off the chart due to his fathers predicament. Now he has ended up at a public high school and all he can think of is to be popular amongst the other students. His time at the public high school starts badly though when he ends up being picked on by Murphy, the school bully, but eventually he makes peace with Murphy by going into business with him. The business is listening to the other kids problems and selling prescription drugs to them. Soon enough he feels the sweet moment of popularity. Charlie falls as well for the daughter of the principal, Susan Gardner (Kat Dennings), which becomes a bit of an issue for the principal Nathan Gardner (Robert Downey Jr.). Things becomes more compicated and Charlie needs to find out how to just be a kid and nothing more....

I was hoping for a nice little high school comedy with some drama, but I believe "Charlie Bartlett" aims and misses. I did not care for Charlie and his "grown up" antics what so ever. "Juno" anyone.... And the movie is build on too many cliches. Yelchin was more or less annoying most of his screen time and there were no character that appealed to me. Robert Downey Jr. is always quite solid, but here he ends up a bit too close to reality and it just feels freaky. Nope, this is not of my liking.