Butler's Cinema Scene

“THE WAY, WAY BACK” My rating: B+ (Opening wide on July 19) 

103 minutes | MPAA rating:  PG-13

Coming-of-age-movies are a dime a dozen, and a plot outline of “The Way, Way Back” suggests just more of the same.

But five minutes into this first feature from the writing/directing team of Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (they wrote the screenplay for Alexander Payne’s marvelous “The Descendants”) you’ll realize that something special is at work. This movie is fall-over funny, emotionally resonant (without getting sticky) and astonishingly charitable toward a cast of characters who are, to put it mildly, majorly flawed.

Our  protagonist is Duncan (Liam James), a 14-year-old who appears to have no personality save for a bad case of sullenness. Duncan is stuck in the summer vacation from hell. His divorced and insecure mother Pam (Toni

Toni Collette, Steve Carell

Collette) has taken up with alpha-male car salesman Trent (Steve Carell in a straight role); now Duncan has been shanghaied into a summer at Trent’s beach house on Cape Cod.  Also on board is Trent’s high-schooler daughter Steph (Zoe Levin), who cannot mask her disdain for these interlopers.

Once installed on the shore Duncan can only observe with silent disgust the behavior of vacationing adults. Trent and Pam seem to party around the clock (after seeing this film you’ll think twice before drinking around your kids), acting like teenagers with Trent’s friend Kip (Rob Corddry) and his hot wife Joan (Amanda Peet).

Allison Janney

An ever-present fifth wheel is the divorced woman next door, the brassy alcoholic Betty, portrayed with such braying brio by the great Allison Janney  that every time the character appears the screen seems to get brighter. Janney’s delivery of hilarious dialogue carries the whiff of an Oscar nomination.

Trent is a controlling dick whose attempts at being fatherly to his girlfriend’s son are merely cosmetic. For this guy every human contact is an opportunity to assert his own dominance — he sells cars, right? Small wonder that Duncan spends as little time as possible at the beach house.

Instead he bikes around the town, stumbling across a worse-for-wear water theme park. Adopted by the slacker manager of the place, Owen (Sam Rockwell in the ultimate Sam Rockwell role), and a rag-tag bunch of summer employees, Duncan is put to work and slowly comes out of his shell. So much so that he finds the courage to talk to his next-door-neighbor, Betty’s cute daughter Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb).

Everyone is at the top of their game here, but the real stars are Faxon and Rash, who take overly-familiar elements we’ve seen a dozen times in other films like “Adventureland” (the theme park summer job) and “Lymelife” (the girl next door) and make them fresh and compelling. Their characters fit the usual comic stereotypes, yet they’re not one dimensional. For all its laughs, “The Way, Way Back” is astonishingly wise (and forgiving) about human

Sam Rockwell, Liam James

behavior.

Faxon and Rash also appear in the film as idiosyncratic water park employees, the former as a laid-back wise guy, the latter as a bitterly funny hypochondriac. Maya Rudolph oozes warmth as Owen’s long-suffering main squeeze.

Finally, a word about young James, who plays the main character’s son on cable’s “The Killing.” His Duncan is so angry — yet so unassertive — that he could have been unlikeable. In fact, it’s easy to see why Trent finds the kid’s behavior so infuriating. Yet James makes this sad sack compelling and, ultimately, triumphant. Nice job.

By the way, the film’s title refers to Duncan’s insistence on riding in the very back of Trent’s vintage station wagon on a fold-down seat that faces the rear. That way he can keep his distance and look the other way.

I am myself a veteran of the way, way back seat.  Yet another reason why I liked this film so much.

| Robert W. Butler