Starring: Liam James, Sam Rockwell, Steve Carell
Duncan (James) an introverted 14-year-old is spending the
summer at holiday home of Trent (Carell), the boyfriend of Duncan's mother
(Toni Collette) and also joined by Trent's daughter (Zoe Levin). At first sad
about how the summer's panning out, Duncan befriends Owen (Rockwell), a
fun-loving adult works and lives at the local water park, Wizz Water, where
Duncan gets a summer job whilst nursing a crush on Susanna (Annasophia Robb),
the sullen girl next door.
Nat Faxon and Jim Rash both direct and wrote this slice
of coming-of-age dramedy and also grab supporting roles as two water park
employees. Faxon and Rash's most notable collaboration as writers was 2011's
superb Alexander Payne film, The Descendants. The Way, Way Back doesn't really
touch onThe Desccendants in terms of quality (possibly because of Alexander
Payne's astounding skill as a director, which is missing here) and feels almost
more like a successor to Little Miss Sunshine (2006), sharing a similar
aesthetic, a moody male teen and of course the combination of actors Steve
Carell and Toni Collette. Both Collette and Carell give strong performances
with Collette playing the role of the slightly downtrodden middle-aged mother
that she's made her raison-d'être but Carell playing against type as her obnoxious
and, at times, downright vile boyfriend.
Liam James is the lead and plays the part of the
adolescent, of low self-esteem brilliantly and utterly convincingly whilst Sam
Rockwell brings his usual energy and panache to as the charismatic Owen. When
he enters proceedings the film kicks off, but up until then the film lacks
momentum and seems to be going through the motions. As these kind of films go,
The Way, Way Back isn't ground-breaking and it would've benefitted from this
seemingly life-changing summer to have been more fun, or perhaps pushed the
romantic element a little further as it is rather downplayed. Entertaining and
enjoyable, The Way, Way Back probably just needed an Alexander Payne to bring
more heart to the proceedings.
Next time, world-famous pop group, One Direction team up
with documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock to bring us a look into the group's
world tour in, One Direction - This Is Us.
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