Charlie Bartlett

WAAAAYY back in 2007, back when I actually liked a Transformers movie, I saw commercials for a high school comedy film called Charlie Bartlett. It certainly piqued my interested, but I didn't get to see it. That is, until about a few weeks ago when I bought the DVD from a going-out-of-business BlockBuster.

The movie starts with the title character (Anton Yelchin) getting kicked out yet another prep school. You see, he has this desire to be popular and would do anything to obtain popularity, including distributing very authentic fake IDs. So Charlie, being a rich kid living in a mansion that would put the Addams' Family to shame, decides to go to public school.

On the first day, he goes to school wearing the uniform of his previous academy, makes friends with Kat Dennings, and get the shit beat out of him by a hardass who looks like Noah Puckerman from Glee. After his mother (Hope Davis) sends him to the family shrink, Charlie is given a prescription of Ritalin to see if he has ADD (though, from what I've heard, an easier method would be to sit him down and read The Great Gatsby to him and see if he falls asleep).

Instead of having the desired effect, Charlie goes batshit-crazy high off of the Ritalin, to the point of streaking in his briefs in the middle of the night. This gives him the idea to hire the Puck wannabe as his "business partner" and sell off the Ritalin at the school dance. And so Charlie becomes the (unofficial) school psychologist, having "patients" come into the boys' room to tell them their problems and him getting the prescriptions from various other shrinks. Some student patients include Mark Rendall (PBS's Arthur. No, really), Megan Park (Grace from Secret Life of the American Teenager), and current popstar Drake (back when he was just Jimmy on Degrassi).

Also, Kat Dennings is the daughter of the principal, who spends most of his free time drinking scotch, playing with his RC toy boat, and being played by Robert Downey Jr. (what a shock)

For some reason, this film was marketed to be the new Ferris Bueller. Except Ferris Bueller was a comedy set in its own bizarro John Hughes world, where as Charlie Bartlett is a dramedy taking place in something that resembles reality.

I honestly really liked this movie. It seems like it was taking the setting of Degrassi and mixing in elements from Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide. It has a great blend that makes it humorous, but also not afraid to go a few miles in the other direction.

I consider it an underrated classic.