The Wackness : Shropshire Star:

Jonathan Levine’s hip follow-up to All The Boys Love Mandy Lane is a quirky rites of passage drama set in 1994 New York.

‘I am Luke Shapiro, I am a drug dealer.

Hear my cry,’ explains the narrator of this beguiling story, a misfit high school student who supplies the locals with weed, hidden inside an ice cream cart, which he trundles around the Big Apple’s avenues and parks.

Hippie chick Union (Mary-Kate Olsen) and reclusive Eleanor (Jane Adams) gladly sample Luke’s wares, collected fresh every week from supplier Percy (Method Man).

Another regular customer is psychiatrist Dr Squires (Sir Ben Kingsley), who pays for his habit with sessions on the couch to dissect Luke’s fraught home situation.

A fragile bond of trust develops between Luke (Josh Peck) and the crazed medic, whose personal philosophies on life include, ‘Never trust anyone who doesn’t smoke pot or listen to Bob Dylan.’ However, professional ties are strained when Luke develops a crush on Squires’ free spirited daughter Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby), a beautiful and vivacious chip off the self-analyzing block.

‘I see the dopeness in everything, and you just see the wackness,’ she informs Luke, encouraging her young paramour to find a glimmer of hope in his seemingly hopeless existence.

However, that’s easier said than done for an outcast like Luke, who sees himself as ‘the most popular of the unpopular.’ The Wackness is almost too cool for school, with a script of brilliantly snappy dialogue, like when Dr Squires sympathizes with Luke by remarking, ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ and the teenager retorts dryly, ‘I’m sorry to live it’.

Kingsley devours every frame as the self-destructive shrink with the smokin’ habit, a lovable rogue who is even more screwed-up than his patients.

Peck is unrecognizable from his chubby-cheeked persona on the children’s sitcom Drake & Josh, bringing a charm and vulnerability to his alienated teen.

The relationship with Thirlby rings true, developing from the exchange of mix tapes to the hushed confession of embarrassing personal truths, such as Luke’s inexperience with girls.

‘You’re a virgin?’ gasps Stephanie.

‘Nah…’ he replies, hoping to retain his air of cool indifference, ‘I just never officially had sex.’ The pivotal love scene is awkward yet beautiful, highlighting Luke’s insecurities about exposing his body.

The couple’s final moments together, staring at one another in a hallway, leave a huge lump in the throat.

Writer-director Levine vividly evokes a city bumping and grinding to DJ Jazzy Jeff And The Fresh Prince, A Tribe Called Quest and R Kelly, at a time when Major Rudy Guiliani was vociferously advocating his zero tolerance approach to drugs and crime on the streets.

Somehow, Luke manages to slip through the net but that’s not to say that he doesn’t learn some painful lessons this long, hot summer.