Pill-popping ‘Charlie Bartlett’ brings morality to teen genre
It’s not easy being Charlie Bartlett. When we first meet the hero of Jon Poll’s diverting new film, he’s getting expelled from his umpteenth private school for running a fake ID business out of his dorm room. As penance for his sins, poor Charlie (Anton Yelchin) is banished to the purgatory of public education — that hormonal jungle populated exclusively by jocks, bimbos and angst-ridden nutcases. I’ve always suspected that the ratio of healthy, well-adjusted public school kids is much higher than Hollywood would have us believe, but since the adult characters in “Charlie Bartlett” are no less deranged, the exaggeration seems oddly appropriate. More »
