Review of Charlie Bartlett (2008) by Jim S — 17 Apr 2009

It's a movie about extremely likeable characters in an extremely unlikeable situation, all while telling a coming-of-age story for helpful, troublemaking teenager. Performances were good from the important members of the cast, I.

E Yelchin, Dennings and Downey Jr., however what it has in character, it lacks in plot development. The film could've used about twenty more minutes to full develop the storyline that was working just fine until they hit the hour mark, then they seemed to realize this thing needs to be under 100 minutes and they bum-rushed the editing into a jumbled mess of inconsistent adult humor and drama spliced into what could've worked much better as a simple comedy.

Is it terrible because of that? Of course not, because it's pretty easy to look past if you focus on the characters, which, if I didn't mention, are superb. Jokes could've used some work, or atleast been used better and more consistently ('snarky remarks' immediately follows attempted suicide), but it's well-enough accpeted as a dark "dramedy", so I'll look past it.

I'd definitely reccomend this to fans of the early, lighter-hearted teen movies, like fans of "Ferris Beuler's Day Off" and the like.