Rocket Science
Cinema Nova, 06/07/2010
Status: Behind by 17 films
Most of the time, the movie soundtrack works at a behind-the-action level. Tarantino or Soderburgh like to make a bit of a thing out of it and sometimes it’s almost another character, like Nick Cave and Warren Ellis’ score for The Proposition, The Polyphonic Spree in Thumbsucker or Eef Barzelay in Rocket Science.
Rocket Science tells the story of Hal Hefner (REECE DANIEL THOMPSON), a fourteen year old with a terrible stammer who is invited to join the debate team by captain Ginny (ANNA KENDRICK, Up in the Air). Hal falls for Ginny and tries to work around, with or through his speech impediment to fulfil her expectation of him. At the same time he’s coping with a bullying brother, a new step-family, and ordering lunch.
Writer-director JEFFREY BLINTZ (Spellbound, the terrific 2002 doco about kids at the national spelling bee championships) puts Hal’s stammer front and centre in all its painful and irritating glory. Combined with Thompson’s awkwardly charming performance, Hal becomes an unlikely, but compelling, hero.
For the most part, the film builds along fairly conventional lines - a beset hero struggles to overcome the odds to win the respect of this peers and the requitement (if that’s not a word, it should be) of his love through an organized and socially sanctioned competition (in this case debating). Blintz turns away from the conventional pay-off at the last possible moment, however, and offers something else instead, with moderate success.
Rocket Science is quirky - not Juno or Wes Anderson quirky, although there are certainly touches of that - but the characters, Barzelay’s score and the plot ground it on the reality side of the fence rather than the whimsical. Blintz delivers a lovely, honest film about coming of age to a kick arse soundtrack.
