Thumbsucker
(2005)
family drama
directed
by : Mike Mills
featuring
: Lou Taylor Pucci - Tilda Swinton - Vince Vaughn - Vincent D'Onofrio -
Keanu Reeves
running
time : 1 hour 44 minutes
A high-school senior finds that fate plays
some interesting tricks with his personality in this dramatic comedy. Justin
Conn (Lou Taylor Pucci) is a neurotic teenager who has a difficult time
with his peers, especially Rebecca (Keilli Garner), a cute girl in his
debate class with whom he is somewhat mutually infatuated. It isn't much
better at home with his obnoxious younger brother Joel (Chase Offerie),
his father, Mike (Vincent D'Onofrio), who is busy having a midlife crisis,
and mother Audrey (Tilda Swinton), who's infatuated with one of her favorite
TV actors (Benjamin Bratt). All this anxiety has to go somewhere, and Justin's
manifestation of his troubles comes in the form of sucking his thumb, which
makes him even more of an outcast. Dr. Perry Lyman (Keanu Reeves), an orthodontist
who seems to double as a new age therapist, treats Justin with hypnosis;
meanwhile, the school psychologist decides he has Attention Deficit Disorder,
and treats him with medication. Suddenly, Justin stops sucking his thumb
and becomes an outgoing overachiever, single-handedly taking his school
debate team to the state championship. But Justin's relationshop with his
debate coach, Mr. Geary (Vince Vaughn), becomes strained, and the boy tries
to mold yet another new identity for himself. Thumbsucker was the first
feature film from Mike Mills, who previously distinguished himself in commercials
and music videos.
An almost perfectly balanced combination
of real-life adolescent awkwardness and laugh-out-loud comedy, writer/director
Mills' Thumbsucker is an absolute success. Pucci shines in his first lead
role in a feature film as the protagonist, Justin, and offers a portrayal
that is nuanced, funny, and geared well for the camera. His performance,
combined with Mill's directional choices, keeps the potentially cumbersome
subject matter of a 17-year-old sucking his thumb from becoming too awkward
for audiences to handle. Instead, after its initial placement in the film
as a means of stage-setting, the habit becomes analogous to whatever coping
mechanism a given viewer might understand. Additionally, performances by
Swinton, D'Onofrio, Vaughn, and Reeves are entertaining and, amazingly,
are not the least bit distracting despite the actors' familiar faces. Each
characterization is controlled; even Vaughn, who has made a name for himself
in more absurdist comedies such as Dodgeball and The Wedding Crashers,
keeps his performance as the eccentric high-school debate team coach reeled
in, despite numerous opportunities to be over the top. In the end, what
could easily have been an awkward satire or a series of reticent characters
in dissonant settings turns out to be a fantastically relatable group of
real people.