The Way Way Back (2013)
Directed by Nat Faxon
Shy 14-year-old Duncan goes on summer vacation with his mother, her overbearing boyfriend, and her boyfriend's daughter. Having a rough time fitting in, Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen, manager of the Water Wizz water park.
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Owen is like a funky update of the Bill Murray character in “Meatballs,” a manic mentor who teaches the troubled protagonist that it just doesn’t matter.
Channeling Bill Murray from “Meatballs,” Owen is the kind of guy that everyone wants to be around, and it’s easy to see why thanks to Rockwell’s immensely charming and hilarious performance.
Wheeling up to a water park, he comes under the wing of the manager, a breezy, don’t-give-a-damn lifer named Owen (Sam Rockwell, channeling the motormouth Bill Murray of “Meatballs”).
Faxon & Rash said their inspiration for Rockwell’s character was Bill Murray in Meatballs, but in Rockwell, at the risk of blasphemy, dare I say they’ve found something even better.
Seeking escape, Duncan ends up hanging around the nearby Water Wizz water park, where he’s adopted by wisecracking man-child manager Owen ( Sam Rockwell , echoing Bill Murray in Meatballs) and his long-suffering girlfriend ( Maya Rudolph ).
Think Bill Murray in Meatballs.
Put another way, Greg Mottola covered similar territory with his far superior ‘80s flashback Adventureland.
It has its charms, most notably in Rockwell's wise-cracking put-on artist, but it never goes for anything really deep as 2009's similarly themed "Adventureland" did, while taking a few missteps along the way.
Not a great deal happens that is likely to surprise you, and the whole finding-yourself-while-working-at-an-amusement-park idea is likely to draw comparisons to Adventureland (2009).
Besides, moviegoers have seen nearly all this on-the-job stuff before, whether in Greg Mottola’s similarly autobiographical “Adventureland” or in corny ’80s movies that take place when this story clearly ought to.
A kindred cousin to 2009's amusement park-set " Adventureland ," "The Way Way Back" features a younger, but equally inexperienced, protagonist while following him during a summer of eye-opening internal growth.
Its time-warped sensibility invokes Pac-Man, Buick station wagons, and REO Speedwagon in subtle homage to The Flamingo Kid and other Eighties-era movies in which teenaged boys experience transformative summers on their way to adulthood.
We’ve certainly seen this comedy before (the movie is incredibly reminiscent of ’80s comedies like “The Flamingo Kid” and “The Sure Thing”) but it’s all about the execution here.
On a Memphicentric note, "The Way, Way Back" may be the first movie to actually include a reference to director Craig Brewer's remake of " Footloose ."
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The terrific Farmiga, who doubles as Norman Bates' unstable mom on A&E's "Psycho"-centric "Bates Motel," apparently already has signed on to star in a few more Warren-based tales for the screen.
We’ve certainly seen this comedy before (the movie is incredibly reminiscent of ’80s comedies like “The Flamingo Kid” and “The Sure Thing”) but it’s all about the execution here.
Liam James (who plays Mirielle Enos’ son on AMC’s The Killing) is virtually silent for the first half of the movie, as his world keeps getting worse and worse.
As Duncan, Liam James (he also plays Jack, Mireille Enos's son in The Killing) conveys the sweet vulnerability of a kid just past the cusp of childhood, old enough to observe and judge the adults' dangerous liaisons without quite being there himself.
Liam James from “The Killing” stars as Duncan, a kid dragged on a summer vacation with his mom (Toni Collette) and her horrible new boyfriend (Steve Carell).
Shy 14-year-old Duncan (Liam James of "The Killing") would much rather be with his dad in California than spending the summer in a northeastern beach town with his mom (Toni Collette) and her boyfriend Trent (Collette's "Little Miss Sunshine" co-star Steve Carell), whose emotional abuse of Duncan is as casual as it is damaging.
In the hands of other screenwriters the familiar plot – 14 year-old boy forced to holiday with mum and her new boyfriend in an unfamiliar seaside location – would give us just another teen angst movie, but Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (who picked up Oscars for their writing on The Descendants and who co-direct this film) create a palette of quirky characters and load the dialogue with gems of sharp banter – especially for Rockwell & Janney.
Wait. "The Way, Way Back" has been written by Jim Rash and Nat Faxon (who won a screenplay Academy Award with Alexander Payne for 2011's "The Descendants"), making their auspicious co-directorial debut.
This bittersweet bonbon was co-written and co-directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, who won Oscars for the screenplay of “The Descendants” and have cameo roles as employees of the water park.
The deep bench of funny supporting players includes Faxon and Rash, who won an Oscar for best adapted screenplay for "The Descendants."
The infusers-in-chief are co-writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (“The Descendants”), who also team together as first-time directors and pace this thing perfectly.
Unlike the pair’s Oscar-winning script with Alexander Payne for “The Descendants,” “Back” effortlessly blends the good with the bad of family and friends without using laughs to shy away from the hard stuff.
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The performances are solid throughout but Rockwell steals it, doing a riff on the characters Bill Murray played in movies like “Stripes” — the fast-talking, smart guy who really has a bigger heart than he likes to let on.
Any movie that lifts from both "This Boy's Life" and "Meatballs" is a rarefied creation, and in this case a pretty wonderful movie.