Charlie Bartlett

Thursday night I saw the movie "Charlie Bartlett," as part of the LA Film Festival.  It's about a high school kid from a wealthy family, who's been kicked out of every private school he's been to and is forced to start attending public school... where in order to make friends, he uses his access to his family's psychiatrist to become therapist to his classmates and sell them Ritalin, Prozac, etc.  It's a sweeter movie than that description makes it sound.  Charlie Bartlett just wants to fit in.  And he's smart enough to find an inventive way to do it.  There was a Q&A afterwards and the director talked about how it was hard to find a distributor for the film because no one wants to touch a film about kids using drugs.  But that surprised me, because it's not really a film about kids using drugs.  It's a film about kids not having an outlet for their problems, and in the end Charlie isn't their pharmacist anymore, he's their counselor and leader and friend.  Along the way he falls in love with the principal's daughter, which leads to all sorts of crazy subplot action with the alcoholic principal, played by Robert Downey, Jr., with a lot more realism that most actors would have brought to the role, I imagine.  The movie is funny, but even more than that, it's good.  It's really good.  I was surprised by how much I liked it.  Solid review here.