December brought us Juno, a teen movie (over)written by a thirty-year-old ex-stripper; February brings us Charlie Bartlett, a teen movie apparently written by a twelve-year-old whipped into a frenzy of high-school anticipation by every other teen movie ever made. It's an odd creature, this Charlie Bartlett — thick with references to Rushmore, Harold and Maude and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, it feels persistently unreal, untempered by real-life experience of high school. The "drug" sequences seem to come from someone less familiar with altered states than with the pot montage in The Breakfast Club, and a key virginity loss is mysteriously set inside a scene from Sixteen Candles. You might find this annoying, or you might find yourself getting wistful for the worst years of your life.
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