The opening scenes of Charlie Bartlett take place in an arena packed to the rafters with adrenalized teenagers waiting in frenzied anticipation for their hero to take the stage. At long last, amid smoke and flashing lights, a figure emerges and takes the microphone. “Hello,” says the charismatic young man with preppy good looks. “My name is Charlie Bartlett. If there’s anything I want you to remember tonight, it’s that you are not alone.” The crowd goes wild.
We’ve just witnessed the favorite daydream of Charlie Bartlett‘s 17-year-old protagonist. It is not unusual, of course, for a teen comedy to be fueled by the hormonal power of male adolescent fantasy, but this is something a bit out of the norm. Charlie’s two strongest motivators—to be popular, and to genuinely help people—merge in his imagined success as a self-help guru. All the filmmakers have to do is combine Charlie’s impulses with an abundance of intelligence and an acute lack of adult supervision, and all sorts of entertaining situations will develop.
Develop, they do. We learn quickly that Charlie’s been kicked out of every private school on his well-heeled mother’s list. Headmasters genuinely like the young man, but they can’t turn a blind eye to industrious yet illegal endeavors like his fake ID service. Charlie’s scams aren’t for the money (he’s got more of that than he can use); they’re for the kudos. Now that he’s run out of prep schools, Charlie will have to charm the teens at the local high school. It’s a decidedly tougher crowd.
As smart as Charlie is, he doesn’t have the sense not to wear his prep school blazer (complete with Latin crest) to his first day at Western Summit High. By the afternoon bell, he’s been snubbed by the jocks and thrashed by the school’s sadistic pot dealer. Charlie’s mother takes one look at his pummeled face and does what any loving, heavily-medicated mother would do—she rings the family’s on-call psychiatrist. The good doc decides what Charlie needs is Ritalin. Charlie (who clearly does not have ADD) takes his prescription, gets high, and realizes Ritalin is exactly what he needs—not for his own ingestion, but for the instant popularity he craves.
He becomes “business partners” with the dealer who would otherwise bully him indefinitely. Charlie discovers all he has to do is feign a variety of problems to a variety of psychiatrists; his easy access to prescription medications can be parlayed into a thriving cottage industry. But before long, the altruistic side of Charlie has him wanting to get his peers not so much high as better. Soon, he’s opened up shop in the men’s room, where he counsels his fellow students stall-to-stall and then prescribes meds appropriate to their symptoms. “Connecting teens and pharmaceuticals is like opening a lemonade stand in the desert,” Charlie sagely observes.
Charlie becomes wildly popular, and seems genuinely effective in his makeshift “practice.” But of course there are complications. Even as the school’s administration is closing in on him, Charlie is falling for the principal’s daughter. And, when one student gets worse instead of better, Charlie begins to realize he might be in over his head.
The emotional center of the film is the relationship between Charlie and the school’s beleaguered principal. Anton Yelchin (Alpha Dog, Hearts in Atlantis) is superbly winsome in the lead role, and the always-riveting Robert Downey Jr. gives Principal Gardner a weight and humanity so realized it’s almost out of place in the sometimes-breezy comedy. Herein lies the problem. Like the teen characters it seeks to portray, Charlie Bartlett is a film that seems more than a little insecure; it takes a while to find itself. Although the entire cast manages to move fluidly between farcical scenes, more realistic comedy, and poignant drama, the changes in tone are distracting.
First-time director Jon Poll (previously known for his editing and production work on the Meet the Parents and Austin Powers films) does a generally good job mining the film’s funny (and supremely timely) premise. But he seems occasionally not to trust his own story (or his audience’s ability to stay focused on it), and thus interrupts the smart and snappy flow with non-sequitur plotlines or completely unnecessary over-the-top bawdiness.
Still, the film has plenty going for it. Although the movie can’t help but evoke other teen comedies (Ferris Bueller, Rushmore, and Pump Up the Volume to name a few), its exploration of our culture’s use and abuse of prescription drugs gives it an original and relevant focus. Gustin Nash’s script lampoons the over-medication (or over-eager medication) of young people, but also manages to suggest that psychiatric drugs are indeed sometimes helpful and prudent. A plotline involving Principal Gardner’s worsening alcoholism (not to mention Charlie’s mother’s obvious dependencies) slyly places more “acceptable” addictions under the microscope. And, commendably, the film eventually gets around to exploring the need for boundaries in the lives of teens, an almost unheard of concept in the genre.
Charlie Bartlett manages to entertain for almost all of its 97 minutes and works its way (however unevenly) to some rewarding emotional climaxes. Although much of the film is exaggerated for satirical purposes (from the over-the-top supposed effect of Ritalin use, to the caricatured depictions of high school life, to Charlie’s ridiculously faked piano playing), somehow, in the eye of the farcical storm, a compelling story gets told. It’s an erratic and somewhat distracted story, but hey, this is a movie about adolescence. Maybe it needs some Ritalin?
Talk About It
Discussion starters- Charlie is unabashed about his need to be liked. Is he abnormally concerned with popularity, or just more honest about it than most? Has the need to be liked ever brought about negative circumstances in your life? How about positive ones?
- Recent headlines reinforce the concern that prescription drugs are being abused in our society. What steps can be taken to ensure the responsible use of psychiatric medication? Is it up to the doctors who prescribe the medications? Are the families and friends of patients in any way obligated to get involved? What is the responsibility of the patient himself or herself?
- Charlie is relieved when his mother finally grounds him for his behavior. At what age do our children stop needing parental boundaries? Is our society’s emphasis on granting young people autonomy a good thing?
The Family Corner
For parents to considerCharlie Bartlett is rated R for frequent profane language, lots of drug content (drug usage is shown to have both favorable and negative effects), and some brief (and completely unnecessary) nudity. One sexual encounter between the main characters is strongly implied, with Charlie happily announcing the loss of his virginity. There are some deeper, redemptive themes in the film, but it is likely that only mature viewers will be able to detect them.
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