It’s been a tragic adolescence for 14-year-old Duncan. His parents have split, his mom (Toni Collette) has taken up with a jerk (Steve Carell) and, to top it off, he lives in Albany. Asked to rate himself on a scale of 1 to 10, he answers, “6.” A lifetime of cringing mediocrity beckons.
But in “The Way, Way Back,” a summer charmer that’s as bright and warm as an afternoon nap on the beach, the boy learns to stand up for himself, acquires the inklings of a sense of irony and makes a couple of key friends. Maybe it doesn’t suck to be alive after all.
Duncan, who spends the summer uncoiling his personality beside his mom, sister and mom’s boyfriend at the latter’s summer beach house in Massachusetts, is played with a beguiling lack of mannerism by Liam James, who seems genuinely awkward and shy, not one of those programmed Hollywood robo-brats. Accomplished actors are all around — Allison Janney is highly amusing as a boozy neighbor, AnnaSophia Robb is her kindly daughter, the ever-reliable Rob Corddry pops up briefly — but James holds everything together by being painfully normal.
The movie, the directorial debut of longtime buddies and co-screenwriters Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (each of whom, especially Rash, is splendid on-screen in a small role), doesn’t blaze any trails with its cozy coming-of-age structure or theme, but it’s emotionally pleasing and supplies lots of laughs. Most of these come courtesy of Sam Rockwell as the slacker-manager of a nearby water park where Duncan takes refuge, lands a gopher job and, in an especially winning scene, does some wicked break dancing, or at least tries. It’s characteristic of Rash and Faxon, who won an Oscar for their screenplay of “The Descendants,” that they don’t overplay the moment beyond the natural comedy.
They also don’t underplay Rockwell, who more or less walks away with the picture (which could have made better use of Carell, whose character should have been more ambiguous and less of a lout). As Owen, Rockwell, improvising much of his dialogue, uncorks a nonstop comic jive — shades of “Fletch” or “Caddyshack”-era Chevy Chase — that helps Duncan learn to loosen up (even if, when he tries to imitate his new mentor, he sounds even more awkward than he does in his own words). Rockwell, too, probably could have used a scene that defines who Owen really is underneath the jokes, but he’s one of the most consistently sharp and engaging actors working today.
Middlebrow coming-of-age movie seems like an easy idea to cook up. But big studio pictures sugar-rush kids with fantasy and spectacle, while indies tend to go off on the organic-raw-vegetables side. “The Way, Way Back” is balanced, satisfying, wholesome. Dig in.