The Wackness (2008) poster
2008 · comedy · drama · coming-of-age

The Wackness

Directed by Jonathan Levine1h 39m2008
ElsewhereIMDb6.931kRT70%Metacritic61TMDB6.4312
  • brisk
  • intimate
Movie DNA

Neutral, kinetic, measured comedy / drama, grounded in texture. Ambivalent, intimate, measured, hand-scored across twelve axes of taste.

How every film is hand-scored →

Set in New York City in the sweltering summer, The Wackness tells the story of a troubled teenage drug dealer, who trades pot for therapy sessions with a drug-addled psychiatrist. Things get more complicated when he falls for one of his classmates, who just happens to be the doctor's daughter. This is a coming-of-age story about sex, drugs, music and what it takes to be a man.

Our read · The Wackness (2008) reads as a neutral, kinetic, grounded comedy · drama · coming-of-age entry — measured in intensity, intimate in scope, measured in temperature, ambivalent in outlook. Hand-scored on twelve axes of taste — mood, pacing, weirdness, hope, stakes, humour, reality, density, warmth, auteur, intensity, and era — with a derived palette drawn from its dominant cinematography.

Where the cast leads
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The shape of The Wackness

Tonight, this looks like

What watching it is actually like.

You want sweaty 2008 NYC summer, hip-hop texture, and messy coming-of-age longing.

ends bittersweetit stays with yousteady all the waygrips by minute 12attention 3/5breezes by
Date nightWith friendsSoloWith parentsKids around
Heads-updrug use

Skip it tonightTeen drug dealing and therapist-patient romance make you uncomfortable.

DNA · twelve axes

The reading.

Each axis is hand-scored — not derived from votes or genre averages. The marker shows where this film sits; the gradient fill uses the film's own cinematography palette.

Mood · HeavyCosy
Pacing · Slow-burnKinetic
Intensity · GentleExtreme
Weirdness · ConventionalSurreal
Hope · NihilisticRedemptive
Stakes · IntimateEpic
Humour · NoneBroad
Reality · GroundedFantastical
Density · SparseTwisty
Warmth · ColdTender
Auteur · TransparentSignature
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