Palpable heat, complete with sweltering lens flares, washes over the mental and emotional currents of writer-director Jonathan Levine's THE WACKNESS. As the summer months of 1994 pass in three naturally marked acts, the neon pop of a pained youth culture's graffiti art punctuates Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's New York City and its palette of washed-out darks and midtones. This part-familiar, part-engagingly new coming-of-age story suggests the Giuliani administration's "cleaning up" of the city as a metaphorical model of how not to approach the pain of living. The philosophical critique of sweeping the ugly under the rug, seeing it as nothing but a disservice to oneself, comes courtesy of the advice and attempted practice of gonzo-druggie psychiatrist Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley) and the struggle of his teenage pot-dealing patient, Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck). The only way to live life, says Squires, who accepts marijuana as payments for Luke's therapy sessions, is to embrace it in all its excruciating throes.

THE WACKNESS is an appropriately self-aware dark comedy that separates itself from coming-of-age films set in earlier eras by pointing to its own genre's conventions (through blunt articulation and express devoicing, alternately) as much as it does its themes and sentiments. Peck delivers a layered performance as Luke. The laconic stoner's heavy-lidded, steely stares and draggy attempts to be cool, and his statements that sound like questions at vulnerable moments ("I got this for you, yo," he says shyly in his white-boy hip-hop intonation as he hands a gift to Squires's stepdaughter Stephanie, the girl he's fallen in love with), are belied by a natural intelligence and a growing anxiety. Incidentally, beautiful Manhattan native Olivia Thirlby (JUNO) is perfect as dream girl Stephanie. All this feverish imagery is emotionally enveloped by THE WACKNESS's ?90s hip-hop soundtrack, which features the Notorious B.I.G. and A Tribe Called Quest.

DVD Features:

Region 1
Keep Case
Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35
Audio:
Dolby Digital 5.1 - English, French
Subtitles - French, Spanish - Optional
Additional Release Material:
Additional Footage - The Luke Shapiro Show Episode 1
Audio Commentary - Jonathan Levine, Director; Josh Peck, Actor
Behind The Scenes -Time In A Bottle: Behind the Scenes Of The Wackness
Deleted Scenes
Featurette - Keeping It Real: A Day In The Life Of Writer/Director Jonathan Levine

Distributor Notes: New York, summer 1994, the greatest year in hip-hop, a troubled teenage drug dealer trades pot for therapy sessions with a drug-addled psychiatrist intent on living his life to the fullest. The two form an unlikely friendship, but things get complicated when the kid falls for the doctor's daughter.

Source: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Ben Kingsley: British actor, GANDHI/SCHINDLER'S LIST
Josh Peck: Star, MAX KEEBLE'S BIG MOVIE (2001)
Famke Janssen: Model/Actress
Olivia Thirlby: Actress, JUNO
Mary-Kate Olsen: TV Child Actress/Twin
 Method Man: Rapper & actor

Jonathan Levine: Director, MANDY LANE (2007)

Keith Calder: Producer
Felipe Marino: Producer
Joe Neurauter: Producer

Jonathan Levine: Director, MANDY LANE (2007)

David Torn: Composer, THE ORDER (2003)

"Funny and poignant, THE WACKNESS is one of the better coming-of-age films to hit theaters in a while....Real life plays intriguingly in the background of this edgy comedy..."
"[A] studiously offbeat coming-of-age crowd-pleaser....The film is dotted with timely signifiers, but its one truly relevant reference point is that this was the last moment in the culture before cell phones."
"Ben Kingsley remakes himself almost as comprehensively as he did in SEXY BEAST..."
3 stars out of 5 -- "THE WACKNESS is an easy watch, with hazy cinematography evoking the feel of summer and a mellow soundtrack that lovers of '90s hip-hop will go ape over."