From the Oscar winning minds behind the story of The Descendants, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash bring a similar family oriented film that aspires to be a charming crowd-pleaser, but ends up with the same underwhelming results. The Way Way Back features a coming-of-age story about a teenage boy who feels like an outsider wherever he goes, including his own house. There are some satisfying qualities and charm found in the film (mostly from Sam Rockwell) but The Way Way Back plays out just as you would expect, failing to break from its formulated structure.

For most people spending the entire summer at a beach house out in Cape Cod sounds delightful, but for 14-year-old Duncan (Liam James) that is not the case. That is because Duncan is an introverted teenager who is forced to put up with his mother’s (Toni Collette) overbearing boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell), a man who is constantly trying too hard to act like a father figure towards Duncan but ends up being much more condescending than affectionate. Duncan cannot catch a break even when an opportune situation presents itself as their neighbor just so happens to be a good looking girl his age, but his shy awkwardness still gets the best of him.

With seemingly nowhere else to go, Duncan manages to escape off to a nearby Water Wizz waterpark after running into the boisterous manager of the park, Owen (Sam Rockwell). Their friendship takes off with minimal effort (or much interest) from Duncan as Owen seems very eager to take him under his wing for no reason other than he is bored. This is where The Way Way Back begins to get good as Owen’s 100 mile-per-hour wise cracks energizes the picture and subsequently loosens up Duncan’s boarded up personality.

While Liam James plays the awkward side of his always-slouching and timid character spot-on, he is much less convincing when his role calls for him to show a bit of confidence. Though he is not totally to blame, the script has a few cringe-worthy moments such as a completely overengineered dance routine involving James that would even make Napoleon Dynamite shake his head. And there are multiple times where the film forces him to dance.

Meanwhile, Rockwell completely steals the show with his sarcastic lines and give-no-shit attitude. Even though he is supposed to be more of a supporting character, he is so good that he becomes the best asset of the film. In fact, all of the smaller roles were more redeeming than many of the leads. Faxon makes a hilarious appearance as a lifeguard who knows how take advantage of his powers at the park. And Rash channels his inner Kip (yes, another Napoleon Dynamite reference) which makes for an entertaining sidekick.

If there is one thing The Way Way Back does well it is making the story feel relatable, unfortunately it does so by sporting an all-too-familiar backdrop of characters, circumstances, and outcomes. Granted, this coming-of-age tale is not aiming to be wholly original, but in the end the film only plays to half of its strengths. The Way Way Back does generate a fair amount of laughs throughout the film, but misses on the emotional level because of the underplayed drama between mother and son—a shame because Collette’s character had real potential to be more than just a naïve mother who is content with looking the other way for everything in life.

The Way Way Back trailer:

The 2013 Sundance Film Festival is currently kicking into full-gear over in Park City, Utah and so far there’s been plenty to talk about. We here at Way Too Indie have been following as much information about the films screening so far, and if you’re having a hard time following the festival here’s some of the more major news coming out of Sundance.

Acquisitions

The ultimate goal of every film at Sundance is to get a nice big distribution deal, and so far there have been two examples setting new records for the fest. Don Jon’s Addiction, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut, has scored a huge deal with Relativity Media for $4 million dollars with a $25 million commitment to P&A. The offer is a bold one, especially since the film comes with an R rating and JGL hasn’t proven himself to be a winner at the box office, but Relativity must be confident in the material. The film, a romantic comedy about a sex addict, will most likely get a wide release in the summer.

The other big deal at the festival, and one of the highest ever for Sundance, came from Fox Searchlight. Nat Faxon and Jim Rash’s The Way, Way Back got a whopping $10 million pickup from the studio, but the fact that Searchlight wanted it so bad isn’t too much of a surprise. Faxon and Rash won Best Adapted Screenplay Oscars last year for The Descendants. That film was a box office success for the studio, and The Way, Way Back‘s coming-of-age tale looks to be a crowd pleaser. The film will get a summer release which might be a sign that Searchlight will use a release strategy that’s similar to Beasts of the Southern Wild which also got picked up at Sundance.

Some other interesting acquisitions include:

-The Weinstein Company snagging rights for Fruitvale. The film is a hit with critics (more on that below) so an Oscar push might be in the cards later this year.

-Sony Pictures bought rights for Austenland, a romcom inspired by Jane Austen’s novels. Reviews have been mixed, but Sony Pictures (and more specifically Sony Pictures Classics) have a good track record so it might be better than its gimmicky premise suggests.

-IFC has distribution for Michael Winterbottom’s The Look of Love. Not too shocking that IFC got a deal since they distributed The Trip (Winterbottom and star Steve Coogan’s last collaboration), so expect a platform release on VOD and in theatres sometime soon.

–The Spectacular Now has been gaining buzz for its two main stars, and A24 has already planned to release it in theaters this summer. A24 is a newer distributor but they’ll be in charge of releasing Spring Breakers this year so they must be doing something right.

Buzz

Escape From Tomorrow – It’s a film that flew under everyone’s radar before the festival started, but now that it screened it’s easy to understand why. The film starts with a man finding out he’s been fired on the last day of his family vacation at Disney World, and then proceeds to portray his mind unraveling over the course of the day. The big news item with this movie is that they actually did shoot it at Disney World and Disneyland without Disney’s permission, making critics baffled at how the filmmakers were able to successfully shoot the film without getting into trouble. No one has any clue about what Disney will do, but based on their previous handling of cases it’s likely that this movie will never see the light of day again. Critics have enjoyed the film too, with Indiewire calling it a phantasmagorical nightmare that’s reminiscent of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. It’s unlikely that any distributor will even get a whiff of this movie, but hopefully there will be a chance to see it one day.

Escape From Tomorrow

Fruitvale – The Weinstein Company’s sale of Fruitvale more or less confirmed that something must be going right for this film. Inspired by the tragic shooting of Oscar Grant during New Year’s Day in 2009, Fruitvale opens with cell phone footage of the incident that took Grant’s life (multiple videos taken at the time showed a cop shooting Grant for no apparent reason; the cop claimed he mistook his taser for his gun and got off with a light sentence sparking a series of protests) before rewinding 12 hours to show the last day of Grant’s life. Oscar winners Octavia Spencer and Forest Whitaker star, but most of the praise has been directed towards Michael B. Jordan’s portrayal of Grant. Jordan is familiar to most people as one of the teens in Chronicle, and The Hollywood Reporter said it will serve as a springboard for Jordan’s career.

Fruitvale

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints – Starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck as a couple on the run from the law, David Lowery’s Ain’t Them Bodies Saints has had plenty of terms thrown around including ‘ethereal’, ‘searing’ and getting comparisons to Terrence Malick’s films (specifically Badlands). Lowery’s western will most likely get some sort of distribution deal down the line, but so far it looks like a picturesque and thought-provoking western that’ll be perfect for the arthouse.

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints