It’s not often that you can accuse a movie about American teenagers as being too smart for its own good, but Fred Durst’s The Education of Charlie Banks is exactly that. A coming-of-age drama that spans two decades, cites literary references with pretentious abandon and uses the politics of an Ivy League campus as a microcosm of the division between the haves-and-have-nots in US society ...well, you get the idea that this isn’t American Pie 4.
Jesse Eisenberg (the nebbish, likable star of indie hit The Squid and The Whale, 2005 and splatter-com Zombieland, 2009) is Charlie Banks, an average kid of above-average intelligence. We first meet Charlie in the early 1980s, as he struggles with his teenage afflictions – girls, self-confidence, parents. He must also contend with the neighbourhood heavy, Mick (Jason Ritter), whom he covertly fingers to police after a brutal rooftop brawl. Though Charlie reneges on the testimony, Mick has gotten deep into his psyche, and the situation isn’t helped by his close friend Danny (Christopher Marquette), who hero-worships the thug.
The film leaps ahead several years to find Charlie and Danny in college. Each is blossoming intellectually – especially Charlie, who is also developing a crush on preppy-socialite Mary (Eva Amurri). His world is rocked when Mick shows up unannounced, bunks with them and insinuates himself into every aspect of Charlie’s college life.
At this stage, the film exhibits a split-personality – Mick is mean and bullying, yet begins to soften as campus life, young love (with Mary, much to Charlie’s dismay) and the joys of learning change his gruff exterior. Though the film has a very polished look, it overstates its indie mindset in long scenes of intellectualising, such as when Charlie explains deconstructionism to Mick, or nods to the world of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s American high society (a boozy weekend at a Connecticut mansion is one not-very-subtle reference, as are the endless discussions about The Great Gatsby).
Interpretations may vary about how Durst sees the relationship between Charlie and Mick. Detractors would paint Mick as the 'noble savage’ (one character even refers to him as such) and his education at the hands of the intellectual is his means to a fuller life; admirers may suggest that Charlie learns as much about life beyond the books from the impetuous Mick, whose real emotions, though damaged and raw, make his existence more pure. That the audience is even challenged in such a way is testament to how unusually thoughtful the film is at times.
Durst, graduating from lead singer status with hard-rockers Limp Bizkit, has made a fine first film and shows a great deal of promise as a director. His cast is uniformly terrific, especially second- generation stars Amurri (daughter of Susan Sarandon) and Ritter (son of the late comedian, John), exhibiting a gravitas and rebellious presence that James Dean would have been proud of.
It is hard to fathom how this film, which features all the elements that usually appeal to inner-city filmgoers and the university crowd, was overlooked by the programmers of the nation’s capital-city film festivals. Though flawed, The Education of Charlie Banks is one of the more interesting DVD premieres of recent months.
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