Thumbsucker review
Issue #25
Directed by Mike Mills
By Rebecca Flint-Marx
Published: September 1st, 2005 | 2:39pm
Tis the season for literary screen adaptations. But Thumbsucker, adapted from Walter Kirn’s 1999 novel about an orally fixated teen, is less an exercise in the intricacies of source material than it is a showcase for small, brilliant performances, some by actors whose work we think we know, some by those with barely a credit to their name.
In the latter category is Lou Taylor Pucci, a relative newcomer who handles his title character’s affliction with aplomb. As Justin, an underachiever who sucks his thumb during moments of stress, Pucci projects a smart-assed ennui that manages to be obnoxious and charming in equal measure. He’s surrounded by some familiar faces, including Tilda Swinton as his mother, a nurse who works at a celebrity rehab clinic; Vincent D’Onofrio as his father, a former college football star; Vince Vaughn as his high school debate team coach; and Keanu Reeves a his neo-hippie orthodontist. It’s these performances, rather than the film’s episodic plot, that truly resonate.
Thumbsucker follows Justin as he’s medicated for supposed ADD, becomes an arrogant debate all-star (and reads Moby Dick in one evening), ditches his meds, smokes pot, fumbles through a series of sexual encounters with his longtime crush, suspects his mother of infidelity, and applies to NYU. It’s an entertaining story, one told with a snarky casualness that belies its deeper poignancy. Such emotional complexity is thanks largely to the dynamic between Pucci, Swinton, and D’Onofrio, who convey perfectly a family who rely on but harbor some deep uncertainties about one another.
Vaughn and Reeves also provide some of the most surprising — and gratifying — performances of their careers. Vaughn, taking a break from running the smarm factory, is surprisingly affecting as a well-meaning, insecure guy who’s a little too eager to make his students like him. And Reeves injects just enough of his patented stoner dude into his portrayal of a guy who realizes that his Zen lifestyle has been little more than a flimsy contrivance. He and the rest of Thumbsucker’s cast make low-level dysfunction and existential angst an oddly warmhearted and compulsive experience, a little like the days when you could crawl under the blankets and pop your opposable digit in your mouth for some quality time.
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