FILM REVIEW: THE WAY WAY BACK...

Though he loves his divorced mother Pam (Toni Colette) dearly, fourteen year old Duncan (Liam James) would rather have spent the summer with his father than be dragged along with her and the new man in her life Trent (Steve Carell) to an east-coast beach house where they are to spend the season.  Trent is the kind of person who possibly  thinks he’s encouraging Duncan when he asks the boy how he’d rate himself on a scale of 1 to 10 and when Duncan replies with a ‘6’, Trent says he thinks Duncan would only be a ‘3’). Yes, the audience already hates him.

Quickly realising he’s in danger of being side-lined while all the adults party and relax, Duncan explores further afield and comes across a nearby water theme-park run by the laid-back Owen (Sam Rockwell) who decides to take pity on the lonely kid and also take advantage of his trusting nature as the weather improves.

Not wanting to upset his emotionally-vulnerable mother, Duncan avoids more problems with Trent, but while spending more time at the water-park, with Owen ultimately improves his confidence, it won’t solve all his problems and sooner or later there’s going to be a confrontation and some home truths for everyone…

I mean it as nothing less than the highest compliment that there is something utterly and wonderfully  timeless about The Way Way Back. With only the slightest change to a few lines of dialogue or the fashions on show, this is a coming-of-age story that would be just as home in the 1960s or 1980s as it is today.

Often, family dramas and teenage awkwardness can be boring on screen, either being too heavy and knowing for escapist entertainment or being so slight and frivolous that there is an immediate case of boring familiarity.  But it is thanks to an ensemble cast at the top of their game (including relative newcomer Liam James in the lead role, Steve Carell and Alison Janney – both playing against type - and a great, nuanced  Toni Colette) with the crisp, non-cynical direction of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash that The Way Way Back works on so many levels. It has enough bittersweet nostalgia to make a connection with the adult audience and enough sense of empathy to attract the younger demographic.  The characters aren’t the archetypes one might initially suspect and there’s a steely strength beneath the more comfortable furnishings.

Sam Rockwell, already a dab hand at wacky sidekicks, reins in his performance just enough to be anarchic and entertaining in equal measures, making theme-park owner Owen simultaneously irritating yet endearing in what could have been a one-note role.

But with all the talent on show here – and not a single role in the entire film is wasted – it’s still Liam James  that holds it all together, his Duncan trying to walk the line between keeping the peace and raging against his new  lot… and the young actor selling every moment.  It’s the sort of film that is so solidly paced that you’ll be entertained for the duration: cringing, laughing, frowning and - when the denouement comes - quietly cheering into your popcorn.

With nary an alien, explosion or superhero in sight, this is a superb alternative to much of the summer fare. The sort of film that could well turn into outsider Oscar-bait come the end of the year, it is one of those unexpected gentle but pointed, poignant treats that should benefit from excellent word-of-mouth as it continues to roll-out in more and more US cinemas and enters the UK multiplexes this coming week...

10/10

The Way Way Back (12a) is released by Twentieth Century Fox on 28th August

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FILM REVIEW: WE'RE THE MILLERS

David Clark ( Jason Sudeikis) is a small-time drug dealer who earns a nice sideline in spending money by dealing grass to his neighbours and friends. But when he helps one of the teenage neighbours, Kenny (Will Poulter) is stopping a gang robing erstwhile street urchin Casey (Emma Roberts), he's then robbed himself of all his recent drug money - leaving him massively in debt to pathologically goofy druglord Brad Gurdlinger (Ed Helms).

Brad says he'll wipe out David's debt completely if he'll go to Mexico and collect a smidgen of dope he needs transported across the border. Well aware that he'll look incredibly suspect if he went alone, David comes up with a plan of disguise... he'll take his family with him. Only David doesn't have a family, so Kenny, Casey and his antagonistic neighbour and part-time stripper Rose O'Reilly (Jennifer Aniston) will have to do. Each promised a share of the profits, will this faux family be able to fool the authorities - and even more importantly not get themselves killed by criminals or each other in the process?

There’s something slightly unsettling about watching the news-story of two women facing half a lifetime of imprisonment in the darkest hellhole in Peru for allegedly trying to smuggle drugs …and then going to the cinema for a supposedly-riotous comedy about drug-smuggling. Yes, We’re the Millers tries to have its layer cake and eat it with a central character who – we’re reassured - usually only deals in small amounts of recreational grass and would never, ever sell to kids (because that would be wrong). Yet from the opening credits forwards this is a movie that already knows that it’s walking a fine line... and not one it does that gracefully.

The cast here are amiable enough,  cherry-picked from hit tv shows and comedy outings that mainstream America will recognise and with the addition of the UK’s Will Poulter – who at least is getting some diverse  and diverting work since he debuted back in Son of Rambow.

But the real problem here is not any amoral concept, but simply that there’s far too little decent material - and the few genuine chuckles there are, are stretched over a loose running time that needs to lose almost half an hour to keep things tight. The plot lurches off-road like the ‘family’s’ RV,  journeying between one film-extending contrivance and the next. Despite the supposedly dodgy language and situations that garnered it an adult ‘R’ rating in the US (and a ‘15’ in the UK), there’s less to offend here than an average episode of South Park, nor anything as clever.  Like the party drunk or the office joker, it’s rude and profane and cheeky and silly and amusing in small doses - but it almost feels like a much safer, mainstream comedy that has added the risqué material as a marketing move. It’s like a dated National Lampoon’s Vacation movie remastered for the 21st century, but still feeling tired - with more bongs than Big Ben and less boobs than promised.

And yes, there is also little doubt that a major marketing initiative revolves around the fact that at one point Jennifer Aniston strips down to underwear, gets soaking wet and performing a strip-tease and pole-dance. That alone was probably the pitch that got the movie green-lighted, but while it might stir your loins, the two minutes of bump and grind probably won’t make up for the lack of momentum.

Its box-office number in the US have been much better than people expected (possibly down to the lack of competition) but will probably do even better when it hits DVD.  An amiable, but over-long, all very predictable spliff-riff  that does for sanitising drug-running what Pretty Woman did (arguably better) for prostitution, it'll hit a particular niche well enough, but the drug-mules-as-asses tale won't prove that memorable once you leave the cinema.

7/10

We're the Millers (15)  is released by Warner Bros. on 23rd August

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