by Brett Parker
Picture this: you’ve found yourself attending a party that didn’t turn out to be as much fun as you expected. The affair could be either mind-numbingly boring, much of a muchness, or filled with guests who are too strange or alienating to engage. Yet just when you’re about to give up all hope for the situation, in walks a fun-loving buddy of yours. This friend is an energetic and hilarious life-of-the-party who’s just what the doctor ordered. He’s the kind of person who can surely transform the proceedings into an absolute blast. That’s exactly how I’ve been feeling about Sam Rockwell at the movies lately. There have been numerous films recently that were on shaky ground until Rockwell walked in and upped the ante. He was the one spirited supporting player who wasn’t hindered by diminished screen time in Iron Man 2 and he elevated the uneasy lunacy of Seven Psychopaths to comic gold. Now with his latest flick, The Way, Way Back, he’s dished out a jolly good performance in familiar mush that is worth the price of admission alone. Giving a competent performance that adds to an entertaining movie is the mark of a good actor, but catapulting a movie from mediocre to worthwhile is the sign of a real treasure.
The Way, Way Back tells the story of Duncan (Liam James), an unhappy 14-year-old who is forced to spend his summer vacation in the beach house of his mother’s new boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carell). Duncan’s Mom, Pam (Toni Collette), wants her son to give the new man in her life a chance, but Duncan rightfully suspects that Trent is an untrustworthy creep. Duncan fits the mold of an awkward teenage loner and he doesn’t fit into his newfound summer environment too easily. It doesn’t take long before Trent’s local beach friends brand the kid as some kind of weirdo.
Things start looking up once our hero visits Water Wizz, a local water park. It’s there that he meets Owen (Sam Rockwell), the goofy manager of the park who senses an ocean of loneliness inside Duncan and decides to take him under his wing. Owen makes him a fellow employee, and pretty soon this laid-back jokester is teaching the kid how to have fun with life and not take everything so seriously. It turns out that Water Wizz is filled with outsiders and misfits just like Duncan who help him come out of his shell and be more assertive with himself. Pretty soon, Owen’s care-free jolliness inspires Duncan to rattle things up within his own family, as Trent grows increasingly mean and Pam grows slowly unhappy.
The Way, Way Back treads familiar grounds with a coming-of-age-in-the-summertime story mixed with a tale of a teenage outcast trying to fit in. Writer-Directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (Academy Award Winners for their script work on The Descendants) don’t really add any fresh insights to either ideal, but you can’t say it isn’t all handled with delicacy. The one major strength this tale has is an acute performance by Liam James, whose embodiment of teenage alienation is miles more convincing than most teen actors in this territory. James conveys lonesome wallflower anguish with such morose, mopish detachment that you realize he’ll be great in serial killer roles when he grows up. So that’s why this movie really lights up when Duncan learns to open up and enjoy himself more, which is like watching a zombie indulging in a school playground. Scenes where local kids teach him how to breakdance and Owen assists him in an epic water slide challenge add peculiar uplift and the small, joyous smile Duncan eventually displays in his Employee-of-the-Month photo conveys a genuine and surprising warmth.
As for the supporting players, Faxon and Rash employ the tactic of casting seasoned veterans in smaller roles to help build a sense of realism around their world. While Allison Janney is able to build a colorful character, the capable Amanda Peet is merely window decoration and the comically gifted Rob Corddry is given no outlet for his humor. Steve Carell is drummed up simply to be a condescending jerk in the kind of role Greg Kinnear could sleepwalk through, but it’s such a refreshing treat to see Carell playing something other than the self-pitying sad sacks he’s grown an annoying taste for. It’s just too bad his comic instincts weren’t allowed to chip away at any real depths in his meanie character.
Of course, Rockwell steals the entire show and becomes the main attraction in this enterprise by miles. Faxon and Rash have stated in interviews that the inspiration for his character came from Bill Murray’s Tripper in Meatballs and it’s a testament to Rockwell that he could go toe-to-toe with Murray on similar comic grounds. As fast-talking irreverence and zany wisdom pours out of this hipster Yoda, you realize that every word out of his mouth is golden dialogue and the only major laughs in the movie originate from this overgrown frat boy. Even when it comes time to turn on the sentiment, Rockwell conveys a sneaky sincerity and an inner-weariness that’s touching as he shows just how much affection he actually has for Duncan. If the rest of the script matched Owen’s manic hilarity and quirky morals, than this movie would’ve been just as dynamite as Rockwell is.
The main lessons we draw from The Way, Way Back tell us to always stand-up for your happiness, even if it doesn’t fit in with the accepted order of things, and how friendship can be the best cure for one’s inner-woes. These aren’t exactly earth-shattering revelations, nor are they presented in a terribly original package, but they’re very important lessons nonetheless and I welcome being reminded about them on occasion. The success of this movie is that it earns those lessons, and it’s such a blessing to have Sam Rockwell help deliver them to us. He’s the shot-of-adrenaline a lot of comedies need these days and I hope his filmography keeps building on his gifts towards something truly awe-inspiring.
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