Orlando Lens
By Nicholas Ware
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The Way Way Back, the directing debut from Oscar-winning writing team Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, has an odd temporality from the outset. It ostensibly happens in the present day--there are smartphones that pop up--but it feels like it happens in the early-to-mid-80s. The fashion choices are appropriately non-committal to the 20-aughts, there is a lot of low-tech bike-riding/pizza-eating/Pac-Man-playing, and the very genre it plays with--the summer vacation teen comedy--had its heyday nearly 30 years ago. The film takes a while getting used to and a while to get going; for the first 15 minutes, I found it sort of dire and unlikable. However, very quickly The Way Way Back transforms from something unpleasant into something that feels right, appropriately scaling domestic and adolescent issues to its 14-year-old protagonist's viewpoint without masking the real pain and awkwardness of that time of life and appropriately celebrating the small victories that can make a huge difference during a teenage summer. An excellent cast and believable characters mix with real emotion and solid laughs to make The Way Way Back a worthy view.
The Way Way Back, the directing debut from Oscar-winning writing team Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, has an odd temporality from the outset. It ostensibly happens in the present day--there are smartphones that pop up--but it feels like it happens in the early-to-mid-80s. The fashion choices are appropriately non-committal to the 20-aughts, there is a lot of low-tech bike-riding/pizza-eating/Pac-Man-playing, and the very genre it plays with--the summer vacation teen comedy--had its heyday nearly 30 years ago. The film takes a while getting used to and a while to get going; for the first 15 minutes, I found it sort of dire and unlikable. However, very quickly The Way Way Back transforms from something unpleasant into something that feels right, appropriately scaling domestic and adolescent issues to its 14-year-old protagonist's viewpoint without masking the real pain and awkwardness of that time of life and appropriately celebrating the small victories that can make a huge difference during a teenage summer. An excellent cast and believable characters mix with real emotion and solid laughs to make The Way Way Back a worthy view.
Though we never know for sure where the film is set, it feels very much like the mid-Atlantic; Virginia, Maryland, or a less-popular part of New Jersey would be my guess. It's important because it feels like the kind of climate in which summer is a magical, tiny window to really enjoy sun, water, and kicking back because the fall comes quickly and the winter comes harsh. Teenage Duncan (Liam James) opens the film doing his best to ignore his mom's jerk boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell) as they head to Trent's beach house for the summer. ... Let us for a moment appreciate the use of the name "Trent," which screams "jerk" in a way few names can. Ok, the moment's passed. I'm glad we had that time together... Pam (Toni Collette) is relatively fresh off divorcing Duncan's dad, who we learn has already settled down with a new, younger woman. Trent lets Duncan know, in no uncertain terms, that he thinks Duncan is "a three" on a scale of ten and that Duncan needs to work on himself, which is about the most smarmy, jerk thing an adult could say to a 14-year-old, especially when that adult is a divorced used-car salesman with Steve Carrell's face but none of his charm. Carrell gets a thankless role in The Way Way Back. If the film has a villain, he's it. He's Michael Scott if Michael Scott didn't have a good heart and a natural charm: just pure uncomfortable douchiness.
The actors populating The Way Way Back are stellar. Allison Janney is fantastic as Trent's boozy neighbor with her own post-marital issues, and Sam Rockwell steals the show as the local water park owner who takes Duncan under his wing and, through love and trust, raises Duncan's score well past a three. His charming ne'er-do-well rogue even gets his own mini-arc, as do several of the other characters, even though it is truly Duncan's story. Duncan's journey has the requisite object of desire (AnnaSophia Robb from The Carries Diaries) but his issues are largely family-based. They're also not extraordinary--post-divorce feelings of both resentment and love for his mom and dad and distrust of his mom's new beau--which is a surprisingly bold choice for movies to make these days. Too many movies try to raise the stakes and in doing so become ridiculous, but The Way Way Back stays grounded.
The Way Way Back is neither all-the-way comedy or all-the-way drama, but it largely manages to have its cake and eat it too. There are sequences purely for laughs--most of the scenes with co-writer Jim Rash's character are hysterical but add nothing to the progression of the plot--and sequences that verge on tears. If the film has an obvious flaw, it's the relatively unexciting camerawork and slightly-off color palette that doesn't quite seem to match the film's mood. These are likely the result of successful writers trying their hand at directing, and it is of course the quality of the writing that outshines the visuals. Despite this, The Way Way Back is a summer movie--about summer--that doesn't have that "summer movie" feel and doesn't jump into the quirkiness deep end that so many lesser summer comedy-drama hits like Little Miss Sunshine and Juno (which are prominently displayed on the poster despite having little creative connection with this film) sink into and drown. The Way Way Back is a vacation worth taking.
The Way Way Back opens today at Regal Winter Park and AMC Downtown Disney. Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, language, some sexual content and brief drug material. Run time 1 hour 43 minutes.
