Big Time Adolescence
Starring Griffin Gluck, Pete Davidson, Jon Cryer, Oona Laurence
Directed by Jason Orley
The teenage coming-of-age film subgenre has been met with wild success ("Lady Bird," "Stand By Me"), and wild failures ("Paper Towns," "Wide Awake"), and with films like "Big Time Adolescence," there are those that fall somewhere in-between. A film that really has nothing significantly wrong with it, but nothing that really sets it apart and makes it something more than just another adequate addition to the subgenre.
Mo (Griffin Gluck) has been best friends with his sister's boyfriend Zeke (Pete Davidson) since he was ten, despite Zeke's older age and bad role model antics. Now sixteen, Mo keeps getting in trouble at school, and still hangs around Zeke and his friends despite him breaking up with Mo's sister years before. As Zeke continues to be a bad influence on Mo, he also shows a fondness for the young teen as well as a semi-fatherly watchful eye on the boy, despite getting him into trouble over and over again.
Kids in high school often want to find someone to look up to, someone they consider to be cooler than them so they can glean some of that coolness to themselves, and that's what Mo sees in Zeke - a guy who doesn't seem to give a care in the world about anything, and who spends all his time hanging out with his friends, smoking, drinking, and basically doing all the wrong things that teenagers want to do so badly. Obviously, Zeke is no kind of role model for Mo, and that's exactly what Mo is looking for, but also there's something in Mo that Zeke desperately needs a well: a sense of reality grounded in basic facts and consistency.
What makes this film more than terrible is the chemistry between Griffin Gluck and Pete Davidson, who work brilliantly off one another as the ultimate odd couple: Gluck's Mo is quiet, reserved, and contemplative while Davidson's Zeke is off-the-wall, speak-before-he-thinks and impulsive, and their natural imbalace brings a surprising balance to the film. Davidson especially steals the show in his debut film performance after his successful SNL stint, providing a new type of comedy star that'll only grow brighter with time.
It's another typical coming-of-age film where we see Zeke rubbing off on
Mo in all the wrong ways - convincing him to sell drugs at local high
school basement parties to achieve popularity, giving his wayward advice
to Mo for landing his first girlfriend, and basically every other bad
idea you can think of where you already know the ultimate outcome.
Nothing comes as a surprise in Jason Orley's first directorial work, but
when it comes to films of this subgenre, there's not a lot of wiggle
room for surprises.
Continuing the tradition of coming-of-age films, "Big Time Adolescence" maintains the status quo and doesn't deviate from its middle-of-the-road script, but provides strong performances by Griffin Gluck and Pete Davidson that makes it a bit more memorable than others.
The Score: B+
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