Review of Rocket Science (2007) by Ju'wanna D — 25 May 2013

I had written a review for this a few weeks ago, but it magically disappeared so unfortunately I can't write as much as I'd like because I don't remember all the specifics about the movie. Regardless, Rocket Science is a wonderful little indie coming-of-age movie with a lot of heart and some very funny moments.

It's about a high school student named Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson) who has a stuttering problem and is eager to overcome it. After falling for one of the strongest speakers on his school's debate team (played by Anna Kendrick), Hal does the most logical thing a headstrong teenage boy can do and joins the debate team to be with her.

Reece Thompson is great in the lead role and he makes Hal a very sympathetic and endlessly relatable character. He has one spectacular scene in the middle-ish of the movie in which Hal lets out all of his pent-up frustrations by smashing the windows of a certain character's house in a creative way.

He delivers all of his best lines in a fantastic deadpan way, and his character is pretty much the only normal one in the movie. Not to say that's a bad thing at all, it's just that every other character is eccentric or strange in some way, including a mother and father who argue by playing Violent Femmes songs on cellos.

Speaking of Violent Femmes, their music makes up almost all of the soundtrack, and the soundtrack genuinely rocks. It acts as the perfect backdrop to a few select scenes and makes them that much better.

Rocket Science does fall prey to a couple of coming-of-age and indie movie cliches, but for the most part it's a very unique and likable comedy that is well worth seeing.