Stars: Robert Downey Jr, Hope Davis, Anton Yelchin, Kat Dennings

Director: Jon Poll

Summary: At the start of CHARLIE BARTLETT, the title character (Anton Yelchin) is expelled from yet another elite boarding school. This incident is just one in a long chain of expulsions resulting from Charlie's eccentric behaviour. His high-strung, heavily medicated mother (Hope Davis) persuades him to enrol in public school, where he wears a prep school blazer and an all-too-eager look on his face. When he meets school bully Murphey (Tyler Hilton), who shoves his head down a toilet bowl, his dreams of acceptance are quickly crushed. But the young entrepreneur soon finds another use for the same bathroom stall, setting up shop as the school's unlikely shrink to his troubled fellow students, who line up for unorthodox counselling and medication that Charlie gets from his family's on-call psychiatrist. Charlie's the talk of the school until he catches the eye of the depressed Principal Gardner (Robert Downey Jr.).

At the start of CHARLIE BARTLETT, the title character (Anton Yelchin) is expelled from yet another elite boarding school. This incident is just one in a long chain of expulsions resulting from Charlie's eccentric behaviour. Despite his charming looks and wealthy upbringing, Charlie is just as insecure and unconfident as many teens. In fact, it's his intense desire to be popular that gets him into trouble. His high-strung, heavily medicated mother (Hope Davis) persuades him to enrol in public school, where he wears a prep school blazer and an all-too-eager look on his face. When he meets school bully Murphey (Tyler Hilton), who shoves his head down a toilet bowl, his dreams of acceptance are quickly crushed. But the young entrepreneur soon finds another use for the same bathroom stall, setting up shop as the school's unlikely shrink to his troubled fellow students, who line up for unorthodox counselling and medication that Charlie gets from his family's on-call psychiatrist. Charlie's the talk of the school until he catches the eye of the depressed Principal Gardner (Robert Downey Jr.). If Charlie is forced to shut down his little enterprise, will his popularity also disappear? ? CHARLIE BARTLETT is another addition the offbeat teen dramedy genre, with elements strikingly similar to THUMBSUCKER, RUSHMORE, and ROCKET SCIENCE. With the help of strong performances by Yelchin, Davis, and Downey Jr., CHARLIE BARTLETT attempts to appeal to a more mature audience. Despite being precocious, Charlie is innocent at the core, exploring the inner goodness of even the school's meanest bully. As a result, the film shifts back and forth between adult cynicism and childlike wonder as Charlie learns that it's okay to be just a kid.

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Disney loved to mix live action with animation (Mary Poppins, Bedknobs and Broomsticks), but this 1977 effort falls on its face. The turn-of-the-century story concerns an orphaned boy whose only friend is a cartoon monster. While the latter is entertainingly rendered, the rest of the film strains to be enchanting and the cast overreaches in a big way. Not for anybody over the age of ten. --Tom Keogh

Aspect Ratio:	16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Audio commentary with director John Poll and actors Anton Yelchin and Kat Dennings, 'Restroom Confessional' featurette, 'Voodoo' music videop by Spiral Beach
Subtitles:	Spanish, English, German
Year:	2007
Release Date:	February 23, 2009
Runtime:	92 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	3684701000
Keywords:	Charlie, English, Comedy, Drama, Bartlett
Genre:	Drama