Mark Reviews Movies: BIG TIME ADOLESCENCE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 12, 2020

It's not really the kid's fault. That's what the kid tells us, anyway, as a cop drags him out of the classroom during the flash-forward opening scene of Big Time Adolescence. He's just a teenager, after all. He's 16 and just started driving. No one really paid much attention to him, until his older friend hooked him up with booze and marijuana for a party. That means it's the friend's fault, right?

That would be too easy, and this film, about a teenager who gradually realizes that his life is already stuck in a rut at such a young age, isn't about letting anyone, especially the kid, off the hook too easily. Writer/director Jason Orley's debut is funny, yes, because it's about young people doing dumb things that escalate out of control, but it's also surprisingly insightful about why these characters do the things they do and let it get so out of control in the first place.

The kid is named Mo (Griffin Gluck), and he's bright enough—otherwise the cops wouldn't have to be called in to make a big scene at school. He just doesn't seem to have any idea about what he wants to do with his life, besides the usual stuff—hang out with his friends, find a girlfriend, survive high school long enough to move on to some new and unknown chapter in his life.

Mo, at least, has an excuse. He is 16, and anyone who is certain about what he or she wants to do with the rest of his or her life at that age is either to be feared—because such people are so determined that they'll be in control of all of us one day—or to be pitied—because such youthful ambitions are all but guaranteed to lead to disappointment.

There was a time, then, that the absence of any kind of ambition in Mo's older friend Zeke (Pete Davidson) was to be expected. That was around the time that Mo met this older guy, when he was dating the kid's elder sister Kate (Emily Arlook). Zeke was like the cool, older brother that Mo never had—driving him around town, getting him into movies he wasn't supposed to see, showing him the first picture of a naked woman he ever saw.

Things didn't end well for the couple, because she was convinced Zeke was cheating on her. Mo, though, wanted to remain friends with Zeke, and they have been ever since.

Now, Mo is 16, and Zeke is in his early 20s—with a job he mostly ignores, living in the house of the late grandmother who raised him, drinking and smoking weed whenever he can, dating a woman named Holly (Sydney Sweeney) but sneaking off to have sex with Kate, who has a good job and is engaged. After one tryst, Kate points out that it has to stop. They're not kids anymore. "Yeah, we are," Zeke says, with the most confidence and assuredness of anything we hear him say in the film.

That's about it in terms of setup—well, except for the whole thing about Mo, with Zeke's help and supply, becoming a drug dealer at high school parties. We know that Orley genuinely cares about these characters because that subplot just becomes another part of their lives.

Mo finds himself becoming instantly, if superficially, popular, but apart from starting to date the sarcastically charming Sophie (Oona Laurence), he just keeps spending most of his time with Zeke. Seeing a new income stream, Zeke quits his job and just keeps hanging out with his friends, drinking, and smoking marijuana. Things just continue to happen as they always have. Enough happens, though, that Mo starts to question whether his friendship with Zeke is as worthwhile as he once thought it was.

The focus of the story is on these characters but mostly on this friendship. We get how Zeke, with his laidback attitude and access to all of the off-limits "adult" things in life, appeals to Mo, who's a bit of an outsider. How much of his status with the kids his own age, though, is the result o Mo ignoring all of them for his time hanging out with Zeke?

As for Zeke, we can understand why he's drawn to Mo, if only because Zeke wants to remain a kid in his own mind. For whatever reason, Zeke has been stuck in this irresponsible mentality of a teenager since he was one. Mo actually is a teenager, wanting to feel cool by hanging out with Zeke, to rebel against a father (played by Jon Cryer) who thinks the older guy is a bad influence, and to get advice about how to make sure that Sophie becomes his girlfriend.

The film is sympathetic toward these characters, because Mo just wants to belong and Zeke just wants to keep being himself, but it's smart about them, too. It knows that Mo is better than all of this, that he's growing up while Zeke is staying static, and that he'll figure that out on his own. It knows that Zeke is using the kid as much as the kid is using him, and it also know that, as much as he may say that he looks at the kid like a brother, Zeke is too selfish in his attitude and ways to genuinely have that kind of connection with a person.

There's a certain, unexpected degree of sadness beneath all of this, too. Big Time Adolescence isn't just about a kid growing up and owning up to his mistakes. It's about learning that growing up also means growing past and that, maybe, relationships can be mistakes, too.

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