![]() He has a terrific sense of humor and takes an interest in the people around him. As are-free and ungrounded as some of the other adults in the film, Owen has one attribute the others lack. On one of his frequent bike rides on the pink bike he discovers in the garage, however, Duncan finds a kindred spirit at the Wizz World Water Park in the person of Owen (Sam Rockwell), the park's manager. He is more at ease with Betty's younger son Peter (River Alexander) who is constantly being teased about his unfocused left eye. There is the boozy and off-the-wall neighbor Betty (Allison Janney) as well as Trent's friends Kip and Joan (Robb Corddry and Amanda Peet), all engaging in what Betty calls "Spring break for adults." To make matters more uncomfortable, Betty's daughter Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb), who is slightly older than Duncan, tries to engage him in conversation but the stoop-shouldered boy is too withdrawn to respond. As Albert Einstein said, "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." At the New England beach house as his mother tries to make everyone happy, Duncan has to deal with adults whose maturity level on a scale of one to ten might be so low as to be off the charts. When Trent tells him (calling him Buddy as he does throughout the film as if he has no name) that he thinks he is a three because he doesn't put himself out to people, he might think he is showing some tough love, but the result is that Duncan is pushed deeper into his shell. Not normally being asked to rate oneself, Duncan might have said "two thumbs up," if he thought about it, but all he can think of to say is a six. On the drive to spend the summer at Trent's beach house called "The Riptide," Trent asks him how he would rate himself on a scale of one to ten. In the film, 14-year-old Duncan (Liam James) is a sullen, withdrawn adolescent whose shaky self-image is not helped by his divorced mother Pam's (Toni Collette) and her obnoxious boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell), or his snippy daughter Steph (Zoe Levin). Of course, there are the usual complaints from critics about how it "doesn't break any new ground" as if it was a construction site, but to me it felt fresh and alive with real and relatable characters far removed from the stereotypes of most films in this genre. ![]() Though there are more coming-of-age films than references to God in the Bible, very few have really hit home for me as much as this one. "Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing"- Naomi Shihab Nye Directed and co-written by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash who won an Oscar for the Best Adapted Screenplay for The Descendants, The Way Way Back is a warmhearted and beautifully realized teen comedy that is as poignant as it is funny.
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