Charlie Bartlett User Reviews

Deis
from Birmingham, West Midlands, England

May 27, 2008

Charlie Bartlett isn’t cool. Which is very odd, because he has all the right ingredients. He’s not bad looking, he’s relatively confident in himself, he’s rich, and his mother doesn’t care what he does. Despite his being expelled from school for the umpteenth time - later eliciting the comment “is there a private school you haven’t been expelled from?” - she doesn’t punish him, yell at him, or get angry in any way whatsoever. Instead, they simply find the nearest public school.

Although Charlie Bartlett is sensible enough to take the bus rather than the limo, his first day gets off to a rather rocky start. He wears his private school uniform, right down to the latin-mottoed badge and the attaché case. This, combined with his long words, draws the attention of both a mildly rebellious girl (a wonderfully moody, slightly gothic Kat Dennings), who will become important later, and the school’s resident bully (Tyler Hilton, successfully disguising his good looks with a bad hairstyle), who will be more immediately relevant when he decides that what Charlie really needs to do is inhale toilet water. After his mother insists he speak to their on-call psychiatrist, Charlie is prescribed Ritalin, and after discovering the possibly desirable effects, he also discovers a new business plan - selling his prescriptions on to other students.

This kind of thing - as we see from the opening scene - is really Charlie’s MO. He was expelled from his last school for laminating fake drivers licenses for other students, and he presumably committed similar stunts at his other schools. He’s not a trouble-maker, or rather, not just for the sake of it. Charlie’s a little more complex than that, and it seems he really does want to help his fellow students - although it’s maybe not in the way the adults think they need it. As well as dealing drugs, he offers a counselling service, using two cubicles in the boys bathroom as a makeshift confessional. He also has the classic teenager desire to be popular and somewhat famous within the limited world of high school - a clichéd idea saved by the original way in which it is carried out.

Charlie Bartlett seems almost like a cross between St Trinians (the latest one) and Drillbit Taylor. Or perhaps Heathers with less psychotic violence. Sometimes, Charlie’s antics don’t seem to have a reaction or any serious consequences, particularly where his mother is concerned. On announcing the loss of his virginity to a crowded room, his partner’s only reaction is to roll her eyes, and the view of drug-use is mostly idealised, apart from in a few instances. This is quite refreshing - an unusual view, but somewhat realistic - and serves to make the really serious events more dramatic and touching, rather than filling the film with unnecessary melodrama.

This film’s greatest strength is probably in its characters. Every single one is incredibly well-realised, and you really get the impression that there’s a lot going on under the surface. Charlie Bartlett himself, for instance. He wants to be liked, that much is obvious, and he’s not above lying to adults or breaking the law to do things for other students. He decides to catch the bus to school rather than take his limo, but he still wears his posh uniform. Later, he rips the badge from it, but continues to wear the jacket and caps, both of which make him stand out - so it’s clear that, despite wanting popularity to the extent that he does, there are some parts of himself that he just doesn’t want to change.

Charlie Bartlett, the character, as played by Anton Yelchin, has a wonderful sense of drama. He’s a born performer, with a very memorable audition scene for the school play. He also displays a penchant for dressing like something out of the Matrix occasionally - most dramatically when he decides to kidnap the school bully in order to have a little talk with him in his limo.

Another notable character is the headmaster, Principal Gardner, played by a low-key Robert Downey Jr. It becomes clear very early on that he’s newly promoted, with the school board watching his every move, and little control over his students. So when Charlie almost unconsciously challenges his authority, the pressures on him increase.

Some of the film focuses on Gardner’s relationship with his daughter, a teenage girl and one of his students. They do care for each other - that much is obvious from certain small hints - but, like many teenagers and their parents, they seem to have lost the ability to communicate, which isn‘t helped by his underestimation of Charlie Bartlett, and his idea that he is merely a troublemaker. At one point Susan Garnder yells “What makes you think you still have control of me?” which echoes one of the themes in the movie - about individuality, and teenagers beginning to leave their parents control. Neatly tied in with Charlie’s need for popularity is the idea of self-worth, something that many teenagers do lack. This is more subtle than inmost teenage TV shows, where it normally shows up, and this delicate-handling makes it good rather than a rehash of something we’ve already seen a million times.

The film’s full of witty little things. Like a t-shirt reading “people like you are the reason people like me need medication”, while Charlie is scamming a psychiatrist in order to get the aforementioned meds. Or Yankee Doodle being sung in an exaggerated English accent (it’s a British song written to poke fun at Americans). Or a character named Lenny who is extremely reminiscent of Of Mice and Men. Fortunately, no puppies were hurt in the filming of Charlie Bartlett. The soundtrack’s great too, with songs like Pusherman (very fitting). Spiral Beach also performs three-quarters of the way through as a school band.

In summary, I found Charlie Bartlett to be a highly enjoyable film. It hasn’t garnered positive reviews from many other critics, and I can only explain that by accusing them of being too old and out of touch (no offence). I liked it.