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‘Rocket Science’

This offbeat movie, which won Jeffrey Blitz a directing award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, is set in Plainsboro.

By Bob Brown
   Why are outsiders so interesting? In this teen angst movie, one among several that are dominating the big screen, we suffer along with a stutterer who is lured by a cute girl to join the high school debating team. It’s like the refrain from the old rock ‘n’ roll song, “Why must I be a teenager in love?” You don’t choose these situations, your hormones do.
   Writer/director Jeffrey Blitz has been thinking about this ever since making the Oscar-nominated spelling-bee documentary Spellbound (2002). In an interview with Erik Davis of the Web site “Cinematical,” Blitz said, “There’s something about the age of a high school student — you live in a raw, ragged kind of way. You haven’t figured out how to defend yourself against your own emotions, in a way. Like, when you get upset, you get really… upset. When you’re in love, you’re like desperately, completely in love. So I think I’m drawn to making movies about that age for that reason.”
   The producers at HBO suggested he do a movie about a stutterer who joins the debate team, after he casually mentioned that this was his own experience. It’s not quite autobiographical, however. Blitz grew up in Ridgewood, not Plainsboro, where the movie is set. He chose Plainsboro for its location, “… because I felt it was more interesting for (the characters) to kind of orbit around a dead city in Trenton. And I like the idea of them sort of thinking that Trenton is the ‘big city’ in a way. It just always made me laugh.” Apparently, Blitz has never asked anyone from Plainsboro or Trenton whether this is humorous, or even realistic.
   Ironically, because of New Jersey’s child-labor laws, which would have restricted filming to six hours a day, locations are actually in Maryland. Trenton’s sole appearance is the “Trenton Makes…” bridge in brief footage supplied by a third party. Otherwise, the grungy back streets of Baltimore stand in for the so-called dead city.
   Location aside, there are a lot of good things going for the movie, especially the characterization of stuttering Hal Hefner by young Canadian actor Reece Thompson. Hal’s particular malady is his inability to complete sentences in a fluid stream, making him the butt of classmates at Plainsboro High. But when Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick) singles him out for his hidden talent as a debater, Hal throws caution to the wind and joins the debate team. He has been smitten. Rigorous coaching sessions with Ginny, and some fumbling attempts at sex in a closet, do not spell debating success, however.
   Predictably, Hal is soon off the team and without reliable adult guidance as to what to do next — or ever. Home is no more stable than school. His mother (Lisbeth Bartlett) has a weird effect on men. In succession, she drives his father (Denis O’Hare) and her lover, Judge Pete (Steve Park), screaming out the door. Hal’s counselor, Lewinsky (Maury Ginsberg), gives bogus advice on how to beat stuttering or deal with life. And Hal’s brother Earl (Vincent Piazza) is simply odd. By comparison, Hal himself seems closer to normal.
   Against all odds, Hal sticks with it, going to the school’s former debate champion, Ben Wekselbaum (Nicholas D’Agosto), for more coaching and a shot at the NJ State Debating Championship. It’s an odd choice, since Ben has kicked debating and school to make his own way at a dry-cleaning store in Trenton. Nevertheless, the two devise a novel approach to suppress the stutter so Hal can compete as an independent, home-schooled entrant. The point is to show up Ginny, who has abandoned Hal and defected to the competing private school Townsend.
   Like the cult hit Napoleon Dynamite, the film is overpopulated with cartoonish figures who seem to have materialized not from reality, but from Blitz’s feverish imagination. Besides Hal and Ginny, no one else is a rounded character. All seem to be a collection of strange habits and bizarre actions that don’t further the plot or Hal’s journey toward truth. Like Judge Pete’s son Heston (Aaron Yoo), they seem to exist merely for comic effect.
   Most disconcerting is an omniscient narrator, who breaks in at crucial moments to describe Hal’s state of mind, with references to a future we don’t see. Blitz wanted this narrative voice as the counterpoint to Hal’s stuttering, a vocal perfection that he aspires to but cannot grasp. It is a rather wooden device at that.
   Even with these weaknesses, however, this offbeat movie, which won Blitz a directing award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, has a singular strength. The resolution doesn’t follow the yellow brick road of Hollywood clichés. There’s a pointed message for everyone about finding love and meaning in life, especially for those who live in New Jersey.
Rated R for some sexual content and language.