Written and directed by Jonathan Levine, The Wackness is a slang-laden, b-boy-style coming-of-age dramedy set against the backdrop of Brooklyn, summer 1994. The story centers around Luke Shapiro (the heavy-lidded Josh Drake), a 17-year-old
recent high school graduate who befriends a misguided, pot-smoking
therapist, Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley), by trading weed for therapy. A somewhat socially awkward “technical” virgin, Luke also tumbles into
love with the therapist’s sarcastic, mature-beyond-her-years
stepdaughter, Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby). Housing his marijuana in an
antiquated ice cart, Luke escapes from an unhappy home life and the
pressures of any impending college decision by wheeling and dealing around the
sweltering city. In the process, he comes into contact with a colorful
coterie of characters — from hippies and hip-hoppers to drug pushers
and prostitutes, the colorful fringe-dwellers of the salad days of pre-Giuliani gentrification — and falls into a weird friend/mentorship with Dr.
Squires, even as his burgeoning relationship with Stephanie seems primed to fall apart.

Owing largely to its outrageous drugs-for-therapy conceit but also a twisted, marble-mouthed adolescent poetry present in some of the film’s dialogue, The Wackness won the Audience Award at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. And it’s a fun movie that doesn’t entirely abandon some of the gritty realities of teenagedom. Mostly, though, it’s nicely shot, and imagined. (At one point, after a lip-lock with Stephanie, Luke leaves and dances down the street, the sidewalk squares lighting up like a certain music video of yesteryear.) If Peck’s performance is a bit hit-and-miss, he’s still intriguing, and the scenes with he and a loopy Kingsley are amusing to watch.

Housed in a regular plastic Amray case, and presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with optional French and Spanish subtitles, The Wackness comes anchored with a feature-length audio commentary track with Levine and Peck. Props are dished all around, naturally (especially since production designer Annie Spitz is Levine’s girlfriend, too), but there’s a hearteningly solid division between anecdote, thematic discussion and snarky asides.

Four deleted scenes run a bit over five minutes, and offer no new wild revelations, per se. There’s also a 17-minute making-of featurette with cast and crew interviews in which Levine confesses to smoking weed, and Kingsley jokes about taking a comedic pass at the character of Gandhi, and says that he and Peck are “the new Laurel and Hardy.” Even more interesting is the eight-minute featurette “Keeping it Real: A Day in the Life of Jonathan Levine,” in which a camera
follows the filmmaker through a day of interviews and other commitments (including a taped sit-down with his costars and Ben Lyons, who comes across as slightly doofy) prior to the movie’s premiere at the Los Angeles
Film Festival. It’s amusing to see Levine so stoked about a promotional chocolate boom box for the movie — a goodie he eventually offers up to an audience member at a post-screening Q&A. Two tossed-off minutes-long “episodes” of Luke Shapiro’s Dope Show, a mock cable access show in which Peck, in character, strikes poses and trades high-fives with his deejaying doorman, are passingly amusing, but one-joke, quick-watch things. Along with five separate trailers for the film are a slate of previews for Synecdoche, New York, Brick Lane, Ashes of Time Redux, Elegy and other Sony titles. For an interview with Levine, click here. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, meanwhile, click here. B (Movie) B+ (Disc)