It’s not every day that a film not only captures the feel of high school and the look of it. Rocket Science, a small gem of a film does just that – in spades.
Rocket Science revolves around Hal Hefner [Reece Daniel Thompson], a nearly invisible high school kid with a stuttering problem. He is bullied by his older brother [who calls him girls’ names] and ignored by most of his school. When a teacher calls upon him, he is rarely able to spit out an answer – even if he knows it, and his attempts to order from the disgusting lunchroom menu usually take long enough that his preference is gone before he can say what he wants. Then there’s his parents’ separation and the Asian fellow that takes his dad’s place in the household…
When Ginny Ryerson [Anna Kendrick], the debate team champion loses her partner to the realization that the whole thing is pointless, she picks Hal as her protégé and partner – to, at least at first, the expected results. Then, after a brief kiss in a janitor’s closet, Ginny transfers to another school, leaving Hal heartbroken.
Hal’s high school is like the real thing. There may be cliques, but there just as many kids who don’t fit into any of the normally perceived groups – let alone with each other. When Ginny selects Hal, it changes almost everything about except his stutter. Their moment in the janitor’s closet gives him the only real happiness he’s ever felt – just as Ginny’s transfer gives him the great pain he’s ever felt.
In an unexpected burst of courage, Hal makes and executes a plan for revenge. Although this sets up one of those “The Big Game” showcases, nothing goes quite as planned – but Hal manages to come out a winner in one of the most important respects.
Adolescence is the most confusing and frightening part of a person’s life. There are so many changes going on, so quickly, that having to go to high school on top of everything else is like being subjected to an Inquisition-like torture. Rocket Science addresses that situation with an understated humor that sneaks up on us just as it strikes home with emotional truths. Its high school isn’t so much a battlefield as a series of awkward, chaotic skirmishes.
When Hal manages to get his brother to promise to limit his name calling to one girl’s name [Penelope] if he should emerge victorious at the debate competition, it’s a bigger victory than even the possibility of winning the debate. When the drunk, heartbroken Hal throws a cello through a certain window, the originality of his grand gesture seems not only screamingly funny [“There’s a cello in your house now.”], but exquisitely appropriate.
How does Hal solve his stuttering problem for the debate championships? That would be telling – just as it would be telling to even try to explain how Hal manages to even get entered.
Rocket Science features some lovely supporting work from Everwood’s Margo Martindale [the debate coach, Mrs. Lumley], Nicolas D’Agosto [the debater who quits in the middle of the opening sequence, leaving Ginny in the lurch] and Aaron Yoo [Heston, the only person in the film who is actually on Hal’s side].
The writing is not only whip smart, it’s compassionate. Every character gets to shine a little, while Hal’s “hero’s journey” is to a victory of an unexpected sort – and a truly believable result.
Jeffrey Blitz does an excellent job of bringing his script to life. He seems almost to have inhabited all the characters; they come across as being so perfectly imperfect and real. Whatever he does next, he has already achieved a measure of greatness with this quiet, odd truthful little gem of a film.
There are but two bonus features – an excellent twenty-minute Making Of documentary and a music video of Clem Snide’s I Love The Unknown.
Grade: Rocket Science – A+
Grade: Features – C+
Final Grade: A-
Yeah this was a great indie flick, really didn’t go where you’d thought it was going, but one great ride and the characters and dialog really made the movie.