THE WAY WAY BACK

The title of this charming coming-of-age bittersweet comedy refers to the rear facing third seat in a massive old station where put-upon young Duncan is sat for the journey to the beach house for the summer vacations.  The other passengers  …. his mother, and a teenage girl are asleep, so Trent his mother’s new boyfriend who is driving, seizes the opportunity to pick on Duncan.  He asks the awkward teenager on a scale of one to ten, how would he rate himself.  When the kid reluctantly answers with ‘6’, he is slapped down with the response from Trent, that he is no more than a ‘3’, thus zapping the poor boy’s confidence even more.

And so the nightmare summer for a seething immature Duncan begins. Ignored by his mother who is trying everything to please her new boyfriend who likes to party with his drinking buddies/best friends who never seem to ever be sober or absent. Trent’s spoilt ‘wordly’ teenager daughter just taunts her prospective new sibling before she ditches him to run and play with her fast crowd. The perpetually drunk pushy next door neighbor tries to dump her cross-eyed younger son onto him, and although her teenage daughter shows some friendliness,  tongue tied Duncan simply does not know how to respond. 

One day out of sheer boredom he finds a bike in the garage and cycles off to explore the town and comes across a local Water Park and instantly bonds with Owen the sarcastic and potty-mouthed manager who has never really grown up, just like the rather jaded amusement park that is his home. Owen is the only one who sees some real potential in this sad lonely teenager who he employs to do odd-jobs.  It is the making of Duncan who blossoms and not only finds his own feet and some confidence too, that for the first time he actually makes is able to make friends ……..with all the quirky bunch of co-workers.

He keeps the fact that he has a job a secret from his mother as it appears that this is not turning out to be a dream vacation for any of the others in the beach house.   With his mother’s new relationship hitting a rocky patch, it is the newly intrepid Duncan who demands that she face reality, but when Trent reacts by spilling other unwanted secrets, he realises that not everything is exactly as it seems.

When his mother, in an attempt to salvage her new relationship, curtails the summer vacation, it is Duncan who doesn’t want to leave and is totally devastated.

There is something very quaintly old-fashioned about this whole movie in a very charming way. Its the first one written and directed by actors turned Oscar-winning screenwriters (‘The Descendants’) Nat Faxon and Jim Rash who also appear on screen as part of the Water Park crew.  Rash had a similar experience in his youth of being asked to grade himself which is what he based the screenplay on, which gives a resonance to the piece (and maybe the reason for the nostalgic touches?)

Great casting makes it a notch or two above being just good.  Steve Carell as the bad stepdad, a thoughtful Toni Collette in an understated role as Mother, the delightful Alison Janney as a funny over-the-top neighbor, and Maya Rudolph as Owen’s long suffering side-kick/girlfriend.  The scene stealers of the piece were unquestionably Sam Rockwell pitch perfect as Duncan’s other dad Owen, and young TV star Liam James with such a wonderfully convincing turn as the nerdy teenager.

Credit too for the fact that the relationship between Owen and Duncan was a refreshing and natural friendship between mentor and stumbling teenager without any of the paranoia that seems to want to mark any such attachments between same-sex friends of different generations as unhealthy or even pervy nowadays

If I have any ‘buts ‘ at all about this movie, it would be over the ending which was a bit of a damp squid, and could/should have been so much better.  That said, I am off to find myself a summer job at the nearest Water Park …..it looks like so much fun……..

★★★★★★★★