Charlie Bartlett Critic Reviews

Rollicking story of a rich kid whose wildly successful bid for popularity has him playing drug-distributing shrink to an entire high school boasts pitch-perfect faceoffs between upstart Anton Yelchin and alcoholic principal Robert Downey Jr. that could fuel a chemistry lab.Read the full review

Yelchin delivers one of those performances that pop eyes... It's a breakthrough role.Read the full review

A refreshingly entertaining character study that refuses to dumb down its youthful cast or bury their concerns in service of a catchy soundtrack.Read the full review

What the movie lacks in technical polish (it's not very handsome-looking) and dramatic perfection, it makes up for in unusual social sophistication.Read the full review

I would classify Charlie Bartlett as a smart teen film. It's more ambitious and overall more successful than its '80s forebears even though the resemblance is unmistakable.Read the full review

The film functions as a high-wire act that can leave you giddy with laughter.Read the full review

If the attention span of Charlie Bartlett didn’t wander here and there, the movie might have been a high school satire worthy of comparison with Alexander Payne’s “Election.” But as it dashes around and eventually turns soft, it loses its train of thought.Read the full review

Robert Downey Jr. is an uncomfortable sight as the school's hard-drinking, overstressed principal.Read the full review

Watching Charlie Bartlett only makes Wes Anderson's work seem more accomplished by comparison, because it underscores that thin line separating the agreeably fanciful from the overbearingly precious.Read the full review