Movies Reviews

Terri – Movie Review

By Ron Wilkinson Jul 6, 2011, 16:43 GMT

Centers on a large 15-year-old boy in a small town as he struggles to adjust to his difficult life. ...more

John C. Reilly and a talented young cast and crew tell it like it is in this powerful high school drama.

Oscar nominated John C. Reilly (“Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story,” “Chicago,” “Magnolia”) just keeps getting better. In “Terri” he teams up with emerging writer/director Azazel Jacobs (“Momma’s Man”) and three talented young actors to turn out a fine and touching film.
 
While we have grown accustomed to the polished and assured performances of John C. Reilly the real surprise in this film is Jacob Wysocki. The young actor parlays his success in “Huge” into the bigger than life character of Terri. Terri is about double the weight of a normal high school kid and he wears pajamas to school.

Other than that, he is average. Oh, he is also smarter than anybody else is in the entire school except for Vice Principal Fitzgerald (Reilly).

This set-up is a heart warmer for all of us. It works especially well for those who thought we were smarter than everybody else was, which, in high school, included us all. His parents abandoned Terri for reasons we never know, giving a sense of poignant mystery to the teenager.

Perhaps his parents were lowlifes. This is an attractive explanation except that Terri’s pajamas are always so well pressed. It is as if his tailor sewed them.

He is engaged in a love-hate mutual care relationship with his elderly uncle James, played in a suitably over-the-top performance by Creed Batton. Uncle James represents half of the adult world (VP Fitzgerald represents the other half).

On his last legs, James is living in a semi-controllable haze of alcohol poisoning and crippling physical and mental disability. Terri succeeds in taking care of him and letting the old man believe he is helping Terri at the same time.

This sets up the classic David vs. Goliath screenplay where the underdog gets to win against all odds; a sure fire success in show business for hundreds of years, especially in the USA.

Whereas the yin and yang of the adult world are played by Reilly and Batton, Terri’s friends Chad (Bridger Zadina) and Heather (Olivia Crocicchia) make up Terri’s real universe.

Chad is a slacker punk and Heather is unable to cope with her exploding sexuality and her near-terminal lack of self-respect. The beauty of the screenplay is that the writers are able to turn these teenage composites into believable characters. That is harder than it might seem.

The kids are just as troubled as are the adults. However, they have a great deal more self-knowledge. They view their troubled personalities with a wisdom that dwarfs that of their elders. The world is opening up to them, with all of its failures. The adults have given up and are unsuccessfully trying to hide.

The film is produced by a team that includes Hunter Gray, the man behind the underrated, earth-shaking high school indie drama “Half Nelson” and director Jacobs’ “Mamma’s Man” producer Tobias Datum.

Datum also rejoins Jacobs as director of photography for this film. Producers Lynette and Crystal Powell and Alex Orlovsky also produced the simmering story of troubled young marrieds in “Blue valentine.”

The production team, alone, appears to carry enough teenage / twenty-something angst to fuel a nuclear reactor. This is one of those films that will spawn dozens of new productions in the coming decades. The cast and crew are that young and that good.

Director Jacobs co-wrote the screenplay with Patrick Dewitt. They have produced a story that refuses to yield to simple answers and refuses to reconcile every detail by the end of the film. Terri, Fitzgerald and their peers grow and develop with each other’s help. In spite of this they know they have a long road ahead.

A must see for fans of john C. Reilly. He was an inspiration for the talented cast and crew that made this film. If you assume the rest of the cast is young, inexperienced and less powerful performers you will be pleasantly surprised.

If the story is a bit predictable and slows down during the last half, it is still a great way to kick-off Wysocki’s career. If you saw Azazel’s “Mamma’s Man” and liked it you will agree Terri is a much bigger success.

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Directed by: Azazel Jacobs
Written by: Patrick Dewitt and Azazel Jacobs
Starring: John C. Reilly, Jacob Wysocki and Creed Bratton 
Release Date: July 1, 2011
MPAA: Not Rated
Runtime: 87 minutes
Country: USA
Language: English
Color: Color