Fun Size
[youtube=http://youtu.be/TPaYkQc1Ylw]
Tagline: Some people just can’t handle Halloween.
If Tom Tykwer has often opted to take on tough tasks, the opposite can surely be said of Josh Schwartz, the man who brought us such heavy-hitting pieces of serious drama as The O.C., Chuck and Gossip Girl.
Actually, we’re being slightly mean, and doubt we could create and run a hit TV series at the tender age of 26, as Schwartz did on The O.C. Now, at a still youthful 36, the wunderkind has written and directed his first movie, Fun Size. We’re in the world of the teen comedy as high school senior, Wren (Victoria Justice) is keen to distance herself from her kooky family by going off to college. But just when she’s on the verge of escaping her past, her mother makes her look after younger brother Albert on Halloween. Even worse, Wren loses Albert so reaches out to a motley crew to find young Albert and get on with the rest of her life.
So far, so Adventures in Babysitting, but what do the reviewers think? The Village Voice is fully on board, noting that while the movie “lacks both the glossy finish of his prime-time serials … and the razor-sharpness of the dialogue,” Fun Size is “a smart and emotionally satisfying slice of wish fulfillment, tracing how a threatened family finds harmony.” But Entertainment Weekly takes the opposite approach, asking “who wants to be a poor poor-man’s version of Can’t Hardly Wait?” and concluding that “There remains a huge market for a great Halloween teen comedy, but Fun Size is the disappointing apple that your crazy-haired neighbor gives you instead of candy. Feel free to dump this one in the bushes.”
MORE: Farewell to The O.C.
NewsFeed’s Flicks Pick: On the basis of the book alone, we’re inclined to give Cloud Atlas, despite its potentially messy elements, the benefit of the doubt.