"Rocket Science" (2007) - Movie Review

A high school film with students not resembling the real kids but anyways give a satisfying film have been seen in the raunchy comedy genre of “American Pie” and in the artistic independent circuit in “Rushmore”, “Thumbsucker” and some of the Gus Van Sant films I have not seen (I am saying this on the dependency of the other reviewers who have to say a lot about Sant’s films like “Elephant” and “Paranoid Park”). “Rocket Science” is about as right is it could get on giving a high school reality comedy one would desperately try of.

It tells the story of a suburbian kid Hal Hefner (Reece Daniel Thompson) keeping things to himself due to his stuttering. It is a study of one’s life in terms of himself and his surroundings rather than the big picture of the school ambience. The school activities become the part of his life but do not grab him into the suction of the spiced up themes of sex and deviance. As the film opens, there is a cold narration similar to what I have heard in “Little Children” in a known fact of two distant events conjoining to represent an artistic uniqueness. It was a let down when it happened since it had the symbols of indulgence most of the independent directors masturbate on. It freezes the silence of a debater Ben Wekselbaum (Nicholas D’Agosto) in his sonic speed delivery in a state championship competition to be watched by his partner Virginia or Ginny (Anna Kendrick) who has aspired so much to win the prize. The same silence is seen when Hal sees his dad (Denis O’Hare) leaves his mom (Lisbeth Bartlett). The relation at that moment though poetic does have a distant union making complete sense of natural behaviour.

“Rocket Science” does the thing what most of the best movies does, merging the reality in to an art of presentation. It has characters with an underlying heart of goodwill with the age and situation playing them. Take Hal’s brother Earl (Vincent Piazza) and he has a secret chest of his favourite items, stolen by him. He talks like a big brother and in every way behaves as one. He is a subtle loving brother in an uncompromising egoistic masquerade of a bully. He has plans or agenda as he calls it for every day and every month encompassing his whole life. And the way he organizes it is too perfect and he would be sucked up into the pyramid marketing as his first fall in fast achievement in life.

There is love and sex not as a material but as an eventuality of life in high school. And when it breaks, a person that age cannot come to terms on the emotion as whether it is rage or affection. Hal is lured in to the debate team by Ginny, a desperate go getter aiming the next year’s championship. She is fast, showy and has a vibe sensing satellite reacting to people watching her when she is not looking them. And she gives a chance for Hal to be in a map not in a school but in himself of what he could make out of this existence.

This is brilliant film making with unique common characters some how or other would have encountered in our school life. The film has teachers eloquent and versatile in their subject that they do not shy to show it off to their students either as a power or an approval of their accumulation of that talent. And there are coaches for special students and the school as an exercise hires some one in the idea that it never gets much people in first place. One such is Hal’s coach Lewinsky (Maury Ginsberg) supposed to help him overcome his stutter. And his knowledge on the subject is umpteenth hand gossip of an online forum discussion about overcoming stuttering.

The hero of this story does not have a high note in front of a crowded auditorium to deliver his success in confidence and speech. He does not get his love back nor has a mystified understanding to look at life as it is. He gets his confidence in a natural way and his level of success is something he could ask properly on what he wants to eat. Reece Thompson gets Hal in every nuances of predictability and topples us with a simplistic delivery of a usual line. He stutters to make the realization of our impatience and completes the meaning of it before it runs off thereby giving the sense of his situation and gets away with it. This is a mature acting by the young Thompson.

Director Jeffrey Blitz’s has one documentary to his name and this is his first feature film and he has the courage to show high school students as high school students. Here he generates comedy out of the old school rule book, on some one else’s misery. But we laugh guiltless and empathize with Hal and many other personalities around him. It is an execution of a screenplay to its creator’s content. I cannot think of a scene which may be out of the lot. Blitz teases us on bringing the formula prep and the usual culmination. He wants us to think that he is taking that path and comes up with a different novel realism which is not put to trick us but anchors the film in to a terrific story telling.