Bill O’Byrne’s Bargain Bin Blues: The Way, Way Back

The Way, Way Back | Value for money: $$$$

• Written and directed by Nat Faxon, Jim Rash
• Starring Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Sam Rockwel, Liam James.

PHIL vs BILL
From the Oscar-winning writers of The Descendants comes their disappointing directorial debut. It stars Liam James (TV’s The Killing, Psych) as an awkward 14-year-old who comes of age one summer while on the holiday from hell with his fragile mother (Toni Collette) and her pompous boyfriend (Steve Carell). James stands out in a heavyweight cast that can’t overcome stock characterisations or the tick-the-boxes screenplay. There are three deleted scenes but not the half-hour of behind-the-scenes footage on the United States release. — Phil Wakefield.

What a gem of a movie. It’s funny, dramatic, clever, and the nice guy ends up doing ok. To hell with dark gothic tales, that’s what newspapers are for. And why Timaru exists.

So it’s about an awkward 14 year old boy is trapped on summer holidays at Cape Cod with his mum (Toni Collette) and her new boyfriend, a super dick of a step-dad. (Steve Carell, brilliant as usual).

When I say awkward, Duncan (Liam Jones) is awkward with a capital O.

Embarrassed by himself and in the presence of every adult, as well as the teen girls he’s surrounded by, his life is every 14-year-old kid’s nightmare existence.

Luckily he meets up with Sam Rockwell who runs the local water park and understands the purgatory of adolescence. Rockwell is a hoot, as usual.

(Every struggling adolescent should find themselves a summer job with Sam Rockwell as an emotional mentor at a water park. It would probably make the ages of 14 to whenever-the-hell-they-stop-being-awkward a lot easier.)

There is dramatic tension, there’s funny and there’s triumph, of a reasonable sort.

People who have been slightly dicky stepfathers (I raise my hand slowly) may learn a lesson, teens will be cheered up, and life is celebrated.

I only give this four stars our of five because due to Wakefield’s obscure rating system the dollar signs are suppose to be indicative of value for money.

While I give it five stars for entertainment excellence, it has no directors’ commentary and just a couple of deleted scenes.

The deleted scenes I could live without but in this case the directors/writers Nat Faxon and Jim Rash play two of the key sub characters which form part of Rockwell’s group of misfits at the water park. (Rash is particularly brilliant as the uber nerdy attendant.)

Co-writer, director and actor Nat Faxon, left, with Sam Rockwell.

Their insights with all three roles scream out for a commentary but there is none and that is a shame. And, alas, it cost this Blu-ray that vital extra value star.

But watch it. Be impressed by the superb acting that never falters – Collette is perfect in capturing the single mum looking for affection and security with someone new while balancing it all with her resentful son.

Jones is so down on himself as he tries to talk to, well, anyone, I occasionally had to pause the movie and walk it off around the lounge before going back into cinematic adolescent flashbacks. And Sam Rockwell, as previously mentioned, is superb. You might need to be a Bonnie Tyler fan to get one of his extended riffs (he quotes it so much they give a credit to Jim Steinman in the soundtrack credits) or you can just let his manic fun wash over you.

It is a lovely movie.

Steve Carell and Sam Rockwell face off with Toni Collette wishing the concrete would swallow her.