One day, Luke Shapiro just graduated from high school, while selling marijuana during the period. One day, Locke is drawn to his classmate, Stephanie as he enters a new experience in his life, and by July, he was hanging out with Stephanie as he takes her rounds of selling pots of ice cream pushers as his destination turns dramatically.
The Wackness marks a step up in ambition, but it is also self-indulgent and needlessly complicated for what it ultimately delivers: a somber John Hughes picture scored to A Tribe Called Quest and Mary J. Blige.
That first sight of Ben Kingsley sucking down a bowl will burn into your memory. You may be watching The Wackness but it's hard to forget that this is Gandhi putting Bic to bong in Jonathan Levine's silly, sappy and sympathetic coming-of-age memoir.
GreenCine
July 30, 2009
With a game cast and cool songs from the era... heartfelt moments battling clumsy ones, The Wackness isn't quite dope but, like a good mixtape it is full of highlights.
Chicago Reader
July 24, 2008
The characters are sympathetically drawn and the modest wisdom rings true.
Parallel yet intertwined older and younger generations, and a real girl, set this above the usual young dudes genre, changing from comic to romantic to poignant and back.
Kingsley's shamelessly zingy performance adds welcome pep, and a delicate, achingly sincere summertime idyll on Fire Island offers notice of Levine's evident promise.
