charlie bartlett

this past weekend jeffry lee and i watched this movie. i didnt really have any interest in it, the commercials for it looked kind of lame, but he had watched it earlier, and said i should give it a try. so i did.
this movie falls into the very narrow category of 'confident high school kid' movies, along the same lines as 'ferris beuler' and 'parker lewis cant loose' (i know that was a tv show, but i needed two examples...). charlie starts at a new school and trys to find his place among the students. he starts by befriending the bully and making him a business proposition. as things start to unfold his business changes into a role of psychiatrist for all the students. the nice thing about the movie is that it doesnt really fall into the high school stereotypes of nerds vs. jocks type stuff. characters may belong to those groups, but are much more than the label. robert downey jr. does a great job as the principle of the school who tries to crush charlie, but ends up crushing himself. anton yelchin, who plays charlie, does a great job here. his calm demeanor and matter of fact style really makes charlie an interesting character. in the end much of the film works, but the answers it arrives at are too easy and wrap up a bit too nicely, kind of like an 80s sitcom life lesson.