The Way, Way Back

    There are a lot of movies like The Way, Way Back.  It’s about a young teenager named Duncan (Liam James) who spends a wet, hot American summer suffering through his adolescent malaise and learning what it means to grow up.  It recalls the wistfulness of sincere coming-of-age movies like Stand by Me and The Sandlot as well as bawdy teenage comedies like Meatballs and Caddyshack.  It’s all a little familiar, but it’s all well-done, well-acted, and earnest, and should resonate with anyone who remembers what it was like to feel strange in their own skin.

    The movie’s most interesting selling point is that is has cast Steve Carell as a total dick.  Carell plays Trent, an egotistical, patronizing blowhard who’s dating Duncan’s mother Pam (Toni Collette).  In the movie’s first scene, Trent asks the reluctant Duncan to rate himself on a scale of one to ten.  Duncan says six.  Trent says three.  It’s interesting to watch Carell, so often cast as the eternal nice guy, play this preening jackass.  The movie doesn’t show much interest in giving Trent dimension, but he is fun to root against.  Duncan has another father figure: Owen, the listless, burnout manager at Water Whiz, the water park where Duncan works for the summer.  Affably played by Sam Rockwell, Owen is easy-going where Trent is uptight, fun where Trent is a buzzkill, empowering where Trent just grinds Duncan into the dirt.  Owen is stuck in a dead-end job while Trent is a financial success, but it’s pretty clear whom Duncan prefers and where the movie wants our loyalties to lie.  Duncan’s actual father lurks off-screen, notably absent.

    Duncan’s issues with his father, and his father figures, form the emotional heart of the movie.  It’s well-tread territory, but it’s easy to sympathize with Duncan, a poor kid caught in a tough situation, and Liam James uses his awkward body language and sheepish glances to sell the angst.  Trent and Owen may be more paragons than people, Trent remaining completely free of any redeeming qualities and Owen more quick-witted and nurturing than any waterpark manager has a right to be, but at Duncan’s age it’s difficult yet to see grown-ups as full individuals, so it works.

    Like the 1980s summer comedies on which it’s based, The Way, Way Back fills out its edges with supporting players and irreverent humor.  Allison Janney lets loose as a lushy, nosy neighbor who throws lavish outdoor barbeques in her backyard.  She, Duncan’s mom, and Trent form an adult playgroup who spend their time drinking and cavorting around town, giving Duncan yet another excuse to sulk.  It’s a cartoonish character, but the always-dependable Janney wrings a few laughs out of it.  Maya Rudolph and writer-director Jim Nash round out the cast as some of Duncan’s Water Whiz co-workers.

    The movie attempts to turn Water Whiz into a symbol of Duncan’s wayward adolescence, the one place in his life where he feels safe, respected, and free to be himself.  It works, but the characters aren’t fully developed enough for it to have the weight the movie wants it to have.  I wish the screenwriters had gone a little bit further in either one of their chosen directions, earnest coming-of-age tale on the one hand or slapstick summer comedy on the other, rather than trying to split the difference.  The Way, Way Back is a good movie, but it can’t quite escape the fact that there are already a lot of movies like it, and that many of them are better.

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