The Wackness - Highs and Lows

The Wackness is a wildly uneven comedy, but at least it's wild.  It stars Ben Kingsley in one of those Sexy Beast-type performances where he somehow, through the grace of God, does not overact or chew scenery or upstage his co-stars, although he could have done all three.

He plays Dr. Squires, a shrink who is unhappily married to a beautiful woman who's much too young for him, and has a step daughter he doesn't have any opinion of.  

One of his patients is Luke Shapiro (played by Josh Peck), a depressed teenager who's looking to fall in love, and possibly lose his virginity, before he goes off to college in the fall.  Luke and Dr. Squires have a very interesting doctor/patient relationship.  You see, Luke pays for his sessions with weed.  Dr. Squires is a major pothead who tokes up right there in his office, and Luke is a drug dealer.

The bond between the two carries the picture, and I really wish it had been more about them and less about the other stuff.  The complications include a romance between Luke and Dr. Squires' stepdaughter, Stephanie (played by Olivia Thirlby), and the continuing fight between Luke's financially constrained parents, counter-pointed with Dr. Squires' own fights with his wife.

All of this stuff is standard fare, and follows a traditional arc, but when the movie manages to get Kingsley and Peck in a room together, or gets them to wander the glorious New York City locations, the movie heats up just like the humid summer it portrays.  It becomes about an old man wanting to be young again, but not necessarily by following the example of his young compatriot.  Kingsley takes what could have been your typical dirty, crazy old man, and lets you see the pain and failure beneath him.  It's not that Dr. Squires is a poor psychiatrist or that he feels he hasn't accomplished anything, it's just that he's so complacent with his job and his life, and with himself, that even mild change is cathartic.

So one day, he goes out and sells weed with Luke.  And then he has a fling with a girl about a third his age.  Then he gets arrested, and his stepdaughter has to bail him out.  It's at this point that Luke and the stepdaughter start their little romance, and the movie takes Luke away from him.  And what is he left with?  He's left with his old, sagging flesh, a wife that he doesn't love and who doesn't love him, and no one to share his thoughts with.  Kingsley somehow shows, without too many words, that Dr. Squires just does not know how he got there.

At one point in the movie, when its just Peck and Kingsley, Dr. Squires' suggestion to Luke is that he go out and make a mess of his life.  Use drugs, have flings, go crazy.  While you're young.  The way Kingsley plays it is not for comedic effect.  Sure, it's funny because of the awkwardness of the situation - a psychiatrist smoking up in his office with his pot-dealing patient.  But the spin Kingsley puts on it, you know it's a cautionary statement as well.  Go out and make a mess of your life, and this could happen to you.  And who would want that?