Charlie Bartlett movie review

Charlie Boring…I Mean Bartlett
By Matthew Calamia

After a year of “dumb-comedies” such as Superbad, and Knocked Up cashed in at the box office, it seemed as if yet another teen-oriented film would go that same route to success. Introducing Charlie Bartlett, the too mature for his own good teenager who tries to change the world one miss-guided mind at a time.
The central plot of the movie is about a rich, private school teenager named Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) who decides he will assist his fellow classmates with their teen angst and other such problems in his new public school, all with the intent to fit in.
Bartlett begins to give counseling to the other students, even going as far as to prescribe them drugs to deal with their problems. In that time, he meets and falls for drama-club leader Susan (Kat Dennings), and befriends the school bully Murphy (Tyler Hilton), and goes as far as to make him a business partner in his drug dealing.
Of course with any movie, there must be a conflict, and it comes in the form of Susan’s father (Robert Downy, Jr.), who happens to be the principal of the school. He refuses to let his daughter get mixed up with a troublemaker, which only causes more problems for himself.
The movie seems to glamorize one of our nation’s biggest problems: drug addiction. The target audience for this film is teenagers, and by portraying drug dealing as a means to gain popularity, is really sending the wrong message to the audience. It showed a school full of pill-poppers needing drugs to deal with their daily problems.
The movie got really sour when one of Bartlett’s “customers” tried to commit suicide by over-dosing on anti-depressants. These types of things just don’t belong in a movie targeted to younger audiences.
The movie itself just had strange scenes where you felt uncomfortable watching, and others you had to ask yourself “what is going on here?” It wasn’t funny enough to be called a comedy, and rather not dramatic enough to be a drama.
The lone bright spot of the movie was strength of Downy Jr’s, ability to portray a man battling alcoholism even after hitting rock bottom.
I would say pass on this one, or wait until it’s on television. Not many high points of laughter, and the story just dragged on until the credits began to role.