Stylish but barely mediocre overall

Purely Joyful Movie!

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Terri (Jacob Wysocki), is a boy. Normally Terri for males is spelled with a "Y" as opposed to the cutesy "I" for females. This is symbolic of his role as a "victim of circumstance" in this awkward coming of age story. Terri is 15, obese and pathetic. He cares for his uncle who has memory lapses and bad days. Terri goes to school wearing pajamas and has a nemesis (Justin Prentice as Dirty Zach) who picks on him as well as is semi-intimate with a blond girl (Olivia Crocicchia as Heather) in which Terri is interested.John C. Reilly plays the semi-cool, slightly creepy, misfit school principal Mr. Fitzgerald who takes an interest in Terri's life as he is frequently late for homeroom. Terri quickly realizes that the principal only meets with misfits and is upset he is in that group. We see Terri and Heather's relationship bloom during a very bad music montage. The movie lumbers along slow and steady like Terri. At times I found myself waiting for something to happen that wasn't as boring as real life. Like most Indy movies it relishes in its uncomfortable scenes, substituting real human drama, which we get enough in our own life, for exploding heads on the screen. I admit it, I am shallow and enjoy exploding heads.If you are a big fan of Indie films and John C. Reilly this is a 5 star must see movie. The characters were unique and realistic. The dialogue flowed but was not abundantly witty or clever. There is a scene where graffiti states "Fitzgerald is a zombie." John C. Reilly played an uncredited "bathroom zombie" in "Zombieland," perhaps an inside indie joke. The movie includes some real life views and philosophy expressed through the understanding John C. Reilly. Good Indie.F bomb, sex talk, near sex. No nudity.

"Terri", a weak drama by Azazel Jacobs, stars Jacob Wysocki as Terri Thompson, a shy, bullied, overweight teenager. As is typical of such films, Terri strikes up a relationship with a beautiful girl who is likewise an outcast and who readily offers him sex. Less conventional is a character played by John C. Reilly. He's a one time outcast who has grown up to become a school principal. Reilly takes Terri under his wing for a series of teacher/student meetings, and does his best to counsel the poor kid.Jacobs directed "Momma's Man" a few years earlier, a similar but stronger film. "Terri", in contrast, reeks of indie conventions. Its most interesting moments - "Terri" confronting some bizarre, murderous inclinations – are brought up only to be quickly cast aside.6/10 – Worth one viewing.

I was hesitant when I saw it was another from the epicenter of bad taste and cringe worthy clichés that is the sundance film festival. Media containing John C Riley, and an over weight teen has appeal like it could have some powerful endorphin driving, dialog and dialect about character and reality... Which is exactly what was attempted, only to be abruptly diluted in a mixture of melodramatic assumptions of what being a loner "teen" is like, and the shock value of implied child pornography. The Movie "Terri" simply tries, for an hour and forty minutes, to be artistic and moving, yet completely fails to develop any character or moral in anyone, much less an actual story, enough to evoke liking or similarity.

Hollywood films have their clichés, but so do Sundance indies as well. We've all sat through underwritten sensitive stories about loners where so much of what is going on is "left unsaid." It's a fine line between poetically subtle and just plain underwritten, and this film falls in the latter category. Who is Terri? Why is he the way he is? Who are any of these people? And none of the relationships here are at all interesting. Nor is there any attempt to provide any kind of psychological insight. Several times characters are confronted about their behavior (Terri in gym class, the girl regarding a sexual encounter, the principal in his office), only to shrug and fail to offer any insight. There's no "there" here. It's an empty bag, a "Sundance favorite" that has nothing to offer. This is something anyone could have written over a weekend. It's been 6 decades since Holden Caufield, and yet people still try to do the sensitive teen thing. Rent Rushmore instead.