Good start, but then it gets ruined

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

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Hal Ashby directed "Harold and Maude" in 1971, a little masterpiece about a depressed teenager called Harold. Disillusioned with the world (religion, nationalism, work, wealth, consumerism, capitalism, the military, school, family etc), Harold resorts to suicidal flights of fancy. He's rehabilitated when he meets Maude, an elderly Holocaust survivor.Directed by Jon Poll, and based on a screenplay by Gustin Nash, "Charlie Bartlett" references "Harold and Maude" several times. Like Ashby's film, it also revolves around a depressed teenager with a wealthy but absent father. In this case his name is Charlie (Anton Yelchin), a mopey teen who moves into a new high-school. Here he meets hundreds of kids who, like him, struggle to cope with various pressures and problems. Charlie helps them all by starting a psychiatrist's booth in a school bathroom.Screenwriter Gustin Nash's father is a psychiatrist. Nash's script, though, uses psychiatry to make a larger point: a damaged generation of adults have abandoned a damaged generation of kids. In "Charlie Bartlett", these kids metaphorically become their own therapists at best, at worst their own self-medicators. Adults remain on the sidelines, watching as kids run damage control."Madness is not a natural, but a political, category," philosopher Mark Fisher once wrote, "what is needed now is a politicization of much more common disorders." Whilst "Charlie Bartlett" is honest about teenage despair, suicide, addiction, authoritarianism, and the way in which society increasingly medicates for maladies, it doesn't really touch upon the roots of such things. Where better teen comedies ("Ghost World", "Pump Up the Volume", "Harold and Muade") delve into the systemic, psycho-socio-economic causes of these problems, "Charlie Bartlett" recoils. Teenage despair, here, is simply a result of being misunderstood and/or unpopular."Charlie Bartlett" stars Anton Yelchin in the titular role. Unconventionally cool, his performance evokes the teen comedies of the 1980s ("Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Say Anything", "The Sure Thing" etc). Hope Davis plays Charlie's mother, a woman who, like all the adults in Nash's script, hides behind addictions whilst her son is called upon to "be an adult" and so "handle" things which no kid should have to. Elsewhere Tyler Hilton plays a school bully, his role subtly referencing 1979's "Over the Edge", another flick about abandoned teens. The film co-stars Robert Downey Junior - himself once an alcoholic - as an alcoholic school principal. A sultry Kat Dennings plays Bartlett's love interest.8/10 – See "Ghost World", "Pump Up The Volume", "The Spectacular Now", "The Perks of Being a Wallflower", "The King of Pigs", Godard's "Le Chinoise" and Bresson's "The Devil Probably".

An enjoyable little flick that is difficult to put a finger on which age group would appreciate it most. All-in-all, it is a semi-dark comedy with some romantic undertones and drama; similar to that of Wes Anderson's 'Rushmore.' The protagonist, Charlie Bartlett, gives a good look at how even the most wealthy, private school attending teens can still be troubled by separated parents, and more specifically the lack of an important male role model (Charlie's father is not seen throughout the entire film and it is hinted that he is incarcerated for one reason or anther...). Bartlett can really be viewed as someone with a real heart of gold, it's just that things go awry for him when he switches to a public school and changes from a preppy-dressed "nerd" so-to-speak, to "Mr. Cool" as he decides to take matters into his own hands and form a psychiatry station of his own in the student bathroom, where he reads up on, diagnoses, holds talk therapy sessions and medicates many of the kids in his school...When Charlie falls for a girl in his literature class, unaware she is the principal's (Robert Downey, Jr.) daughter (Kat Dennings), he is put in many awkward situations with the school's principal (who is an alcoholic, & also divorced) and the superintendent. Interestingly enough, as the plot unravels, Charlie becomes the school's revolutionary hero as he becomes the school's unofficial psychiatrist and peace maker.The storyline is fantastic, fun, and filled with edgy humor, finishing with a bittersweet ending and a warm-fuzzy feeling after some amends are made and lessons are learned. Truly a feel-good-hit of the decade & a more realistic take on teen life in the 2000's than PG-rated movies of the same genre (i.e. Miley Cyrus' chick-flick from 2010, "High School Musical," etc.)...I highly recommend the movie as it is one that will be a cult phenomenon in years to come as well as a modern-day classic. It has a great soundtrack, some realistic themes that teens wouldn't normally talk to their parents about and some fantastic acting. Love it or hate it, it is a pure look at teen life nowadays, no doubt about it. It's rare that a story with good morals and edgy humor make for a good plot, but this one seems to have hit the jackpot.A+

I hate to write a bad review but, without the influence of Todd Phillips's "Road Trip", Wes Anderson's "Rushmore" and Hal Ashby's "Harold and Maude" this film would had never existed. Down to the use of songs like Eels - "Mr. E's Beautiful Blues" from "Road Trip" and "Harold & Maude's" Cat Steven's song "If You Wanna Be Free Be Free".It's pretty much been Done before.Here's a kid, who gets kicked out of an elite prep school, only to join a public school where he sports the garb of his previous schools crested jacket and signs up for a drama class and in the end, the play he created, will unite the characters to a happy ending.I've seen this before... My advice is to see the films I mentioned above first, than let me know if you agree with my review.