The Wackness Critic Reviews

Disappointingly, the movie runs along the track of many earlier coming-of-age dramas, with appointed station stops at Cynicism, Puppy Love, Puppy Sex, Puppy Heartbreak, and Greater Wisdom.Read the full review

What saves this movie, which won this year's audience award at Sundance, from being boring are performances by two actors who see a chance to go over the top and aren't worried about the fall on the other side.Read the full review

The best thing about it is Peck, who shows you the sweet, virginal kid hiding inside the outlaw poseur.Read the full review

Emulating its hero's recklessly independent spirit, The Wackness aspires to be something more than your average psychiatrist-bashing, dysfunctional-parents coming-of-age dramedy à la "Running With Scissors." It snows us with more visual flash than it knows what to do with.Read the full review

Not everything in The Wackness works and there are times when the divergent serious/comedic tones clash instead of complementing each other. However, in spite of its flaws, the production gets us to care about the characters and their situations.Read the full review

An almost-there comedy with diverting compensations.Read the full review

When it's good, it's good, and when it fails, it's still clear what Levine was trying to do.Read the full review

The Wackness may not have much that's new to say about being 17--it's a fairly standard coming-of-age drama with a couple of noteworthy performances--but it's a definitive compendium of trivia about 1994 (by Levine's lights, the best year ever).Read the full review

A tightly packed entertainment. It explodes through familiar teen-transition territory with dark ironies, but, all the while, touches are sentiments.Read the full review