The New Ferris Bueller

This is the way it works: parents are always such a mess, the kids are raising themselves and there's no one to help when you feel depressed, get pounded by the school bully, become suicidal, sexually active, and need help to quit smoking, too. Considering how dreadful life is as a teen, how fraught with disaster family life is, how miserable school culture is, it's no wonder teens need Prozac, Ritalin, Xanax, Paxil, or even a few beers now and then. Along comes Charlie Bartlett, kicked out of most of New England's prep schools, to the local public high school. Charlie's wealthy family has a psychiatrist on call, so Charlie knows more than most about your general psychological troubles and is willing to prescribe drugs from his own medicine chest, well-supplied by his own doctors.

More than anything Charlie wants to be popular, to fit in, to be accepted. And apparently this is just one scheme in a long line of schemes to be well-liked by his peers. This one only lasts until the first overdose. But it does get Charlie the popularity he's dreamed of. The young and appealing actor, Anton Yelchin, plays Charlie quite well, just a touch short of annoying child star. Whether Yelchin was a child star, I don't know. But he is very talented here, and it's refreshing to see this generation-next Ferris Bueller played by an obvious teenager, not a 22-year-old. Robert Downey, Jr., plays the principal you really feel pity for, especially as Charlie does him the favor of keeping his school in order. For the first time I can remember, this film makes the teenager's worst enemy, the high school principal, one of the most sympathetic characters you'll ever meet.

Now that we've mentioned the famous Mr. Bueller, we might as well go into the parallels here. Although the original had a great deal of style and whimsy, we were all in on the joke. Charlie Bartlett comes across as a more realistic Ferris Bueller, with more realistic problems than just wanting a nicer car to drive. And real life is never so clean as suburban Ferris was: on occasion, real kids have divorced parents with alcoholism. Remember now how sweet Ferris and his family were? I remember the adults hating Ferris Bueller, because let's face it, he was an annoying snot of a kid. And his Day Off made parents look like idiots, teachers like droning bores, and turned principals into sadistic fools. But think of how innocent it was: no booze, no drugs, no sex. Ferris had a happy family life with two happily married parents who adored him. And what did Ferris do when he skipped school? He went to an art museum, a baseball game, and joined a parade.

Charlie Bartlett is in many ways the typical American high school-themed movie. The misfit teenager desperate to find popularity, clueless parents, bullies, jocks, the sexy smart girl as the love interest - how to sort them all out? But this funny movie manages to make it through, manages to make sense of it a little bit.