Film Review: The Way Way Back

Duncan is going on holiday to a summer beach house with his mum, Toni Collette, her new boyfriend Steve Carell, and Steve's daughter, a blond popular Regina George type who treats our hero like an ill-fitting Christmas jumper from grandma. Duncan is a NERD.  He likes STAR WARS and PACMAN. He finds a hard time fitting in with all the family fun at the beach, because his family are dicks and for the most part so are the neighbours, until he chances upon a Water Park run by Sam Rockwell and his band of merry dudes and dudettes.

Back in the article A Confederacy Of Former Dunces, I was trying to discuss what I used to call the 'indie-quirk' flick. In general, this would be the sort of movie for which Wes Anderson is the poster child, that has an independent vibe in spite of a modestly hollywood-level budget, and most commonly features the fairly standard plot structure of a romcom or a family drama which is offset by having lots of 'quirk': nerdy, awkward, introverted characters who at first seem a far cry from the Will Smiths and Julia Robertses of the big league, yet who nevertheless end up making the same kinds of decisions that fit conveniently into a three-act structure. 

However, five or so years on and it's no longer worth bothering to put a finger on the defining features of these films, because now you'll probably know exactly the kind of thing I mean if I just say “movies with yellow posters”:

Source: http://awesomenator.com/movies/movie-posters-that-look-the-same/

Now, The Way Way Back, the new offering from the guys behind family drama-but-in-Hawaii The Descendants, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, may not have yellow on its poster but it most definitely has a soul the colour of daisy pollen and Colman's mustard. To begin with, it goes for the classic mould of films like Adventureland, Empire Records and Dazed and Confused: movies about nostalgia's endless summer, where the holidays are filled with drink and frolic, there's coming of age coming out of the woodwork and if you're unlucky enough to have a summer job, it's somewhere where the boss is a cool mentor-figure and you're basically getting paid to hang out with your slacker friends all day and argue about Star Wars.  Lo and behold, the protagonist is even an awkward introverted young man who has a moment of bonding with a girl based on shared music taste. Bananas, taxis, custard, corn, lemons, yolks, American cheese...why is this so familiar...

Well, at least it wasn't the Smiths this time.

To boot, the main adult cast are like the Avengers of cuddly U.S indie: Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Sam Rockwell, Allison Janney, Amanda Peet and, um, that bald guy from Hot Tub Time Machine (...he can be Hawkeye). For the most part, like the Avengers, they all have their own style, and stick to what they do best: Toni is of course The Exhausted Mother, who's doing all she can to keep her dysfunctional family together; Rockwell is Lazy Lovable Slacker Man; Amanda Peet is The Modern Hippie; and Bald Guy is Bald Guy, who looks like an accountant but drinks like a beat-poet and parties like an accountant having a mid-lifey.

Fortunately, the film also manages to play on this familiarity, luring us into certain expectations before lightly sprinkling them in bright yellow wee. This factor is most prominent with Steve Carell's jerk stepfather character, for example: by casting someone whom we are so used to liking, it can at first be hard to accept that his character is quite obviously an asshole.  In this way, it's almost like we the audience are put in the same position as his girlfriend Toni Collette, who fails to see the sphincteral qualities of Carell's ageing jock for quite some time.

In addition, the main character, Duncan, begins almost like a parody of the nerdy-indie-introvert archetype, starting with the classic funny walk, spaced-out gaze and lack of dialogue, but within the first act taking this to extremes that are almost excrutiating: he never answers back, never explains himself, never makes any effort to be anything more than an inconvenient hanger-on, like a hint of fart-smell in the disco of his family's summer-long party. We're of course used to siding with the underdog, and we try hard to stay with him, but finding sympathy can be a bitch when the cute girl's making serious effort to flirt and he just stands there like a dead fish, not even babbling awkward replies as much as just pretending not to exist, in as creepy a way as possible.

Fuck conformity; build sandcastles.

After a while, though, this feels intentional, and it turns out that the film knows what it's doing. He ends up stumbling upon a sea-park bossed by Sam Rockwell, who takes him under his wing, introducing him to the cool sea-park gang, and the rest of the film gives us the gradual process of a dark and dorky outsider coming out of his shell with the help of a posse of awesome dudes who, unlike the dickhead audience, never judge people and are happy to invite everyone to their happy slacky party lifestyle. In short, the film begins by forcing on us a protagonist we don't really like, like the awkward younger cousin we're obliged to entertain at the family reunion, and by the end we feel genuine affection for him.

Aw, look he's having fun. Bless.

This is a neat trick, and it's supported by an above-average script. Sam Rockwell is brilliant as usual, his dialogue in particular sparkling like fresh lemonade, and there's a whole host of background characters that all pull their weight – every supporting character working at the park feels like a fully-fleshed out human being.  Toni Collette may be overdoing the Exhausted Mother thing (The Sixth Sense, Little Miss Sunshine, About A Boy...), but it doesn't really matter because she's really fucking good at it, and she does wonders filling out the dimensions of her character with a few choice tics and facial expressions.

The film walks a neat tightrope between the dramatic and comic elements. Essentially, it flip-flops between sections when Duncan's at home in an angsty family portrait, and the parts where he goes to the sea-park and it's a joky bubbly bimbly bombly boobaly bobbily boo. This sometimes feels awkward, and the balance of tone is tough to handle; overall, The Way Way Back has the camera-work of a drama with the dialogue of a comedy, so the jokes can sometimes fall flat in tone despite being funny on paper, like watching stand-up in a thunderstorm.

As opposed to wishing a certain comedian would just get off stage and go stand in a thunderstorm.

All the same, there are so many lovely little lines of dialogue and truthful character observations throughout The Way Way Back that it's very easy to forgive any gripes about tone or overt adherence to certain tropes of the indie-gem universe. It's a neat little movie that fits in perfectly with the end of summer, and one that has very much earned its right to a yellow poster.

4/5