Movie Review for Rocket Science

Summary: Life is not easy for teenager Hal Hefner of suburban Plainsboro, New Jersey. His parents have abruptly split; his older brother, Earl, is a budding obsessive-compulsive who pushes him around; and he has an unpredictable stutter that makes high school an exercise in embarrassment, self-effacement and terrible lunches. Given that his active mind and quick wit tend to be obscured by his problematic voice, Hal is not an obvious candidate for his school’s high-powered debate team. So it comes as a complete, though not unwelcome, surprise when the team’s star member, the hyper-articulate Ginny Ryerson, approaches Hal on the school bus one afternoon. The Plainsboro debaters need a replacement for Ginny’s former partner, who dropped out of school following a calamitous performance at the New Jersey State High School Policy Debate Championships the previous spring. Ginny, who can compress an eight minute argument into ten seconds without breaking a sweat, dropping a word, or botching a barb, proceeds to present her case for Hal’s potential as a public speaker. She has seen Hal, she has seen his promise. Hal is more than just shocked, or even dazed; he is smitten. As the notion of debating takes hold in Hal’s mind, so, too, do thoughts of the attractive and dazzlingly confident Ginny. Gambling that his voice will cooperate with the rest of him, Hal joins the Plainsboro High debate team as Ginny’s partner. Trundling back and forth to her house with his ever-growing pile of research, Hal starts to see new possibilities in his life. The road ahead holds many twists, turns and bumps for Hal; despite his best efforts, people and circumstances prove more unpredictable than any stutter. But Hal rises to the occasion, and in doing so he scores a victory that has nothing to do with winning a debate--and everything to do with finding his voice.

                         Reviews of Rocket Science
By Marcy Dermansky of About.com (7/0)
            [I] the company of such instant classics as Wes Anderson's Rushmore and Terry Zwigoff's Ghost Wor...

By Tim Brayton of Antagony & Ecstasy (7/0)
            The film isn't really laugh-out-loud hilarious - much too painful for that - but it's not suppose...

By Toddy Burton of Austin Chronicle (7/0)
            Writer/director Blitz demonstrates just how intimately he absorbed the quirky teens and preteens ...

By Michael Sragow of Baltimore Sun (7/0)
            Fresh, funny and unfailingly observant.

By Ty Burr of Boston Globe (7/0)
            Honest and surprisingly lucid at its core.

By Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times (7/0)
            It may gross as little as Welcome to the Dollhouse or as much as Clueless, but whichever it does,...

                         Reviews of Rocket Science
By Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times (7/0)
            The thing about Rocket Science is that its behavior, even its villainy, is within plausible m...

By Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune (7/0)
            ...doesn't quite work but is worth seeing anyway...

By Erik Davis of Cinematical (7/0)
            It's fun to watch an outsider try to succeed in a world full of outsiders, and for that reason al...

By Scott Weinberg of Cinematical (7/0)
            For all its quirky characterizations, semi-clever dialogue and convention-defying plot contortion...

By Cole Smithey of ColeSmithey.com (7/0)
            Positively winning coming-of-age drama/comedy stacks the deck with newcomer Reece Daniel Thompson...

By Harvey S. Karten of Compuserve (7/0)
            Adolescent angst in a movie that's about as quirky and unpredictable as a film-maker can get.

                         Reviews of Rocket Science
By Anthony Quinn of Daily Telegraph (7/0)
            Blitz let the story tell itself in Spellbound; this time, he's trying too hard.

By Boo Allen of Denton Record Chronicle (TX) (7/0)
            This well directed film shows an uncompromising yet faithful look at the horrible teen years.

By Emanuel Levy of EmanuelLevy.Com (7/0)
            This charming "coming of age with a stutter in New Jersey" tale would have been more poignant--an...

By Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly (7/0)
            Why filter such a personal story through the attitudinal tics of Wes Anderson and Napoleon Dynami...

By Eric D. Snider of EricDSnider.com (7/0)
            It offers plenty of smart laughs and genuine character development.

By Zack Haddad of Film Threat (7/0)
            If Napoleon Dynamite and Rocky had a kid and placed it in New Jersey, it would be the delightful ...

                         Reviews of Rocket Science
By Chris Cabin of filmcritic.com (7/0)
            you could pin it as yet another in a long line of Wes Anderson/Todd Solondz rip-offs, and in some...

By Jennie Punter of Globe and Mail (7/0)
            A smart, funny, unpredictable film...a more accurate reflection of high-school life than is usual...

By Peter Canavese of Groucho Reviews (7/0)
            Comes tantalizingly close to the genius of Hal Ashby's unforced, sympathetic humanism...

By Duane Byrge of Hollywood Reporter (7/0)
            Launches into the audience-pleasing stratosphere with a brainy, unpredictable story orbit.

By Bruce Westbrook of Houston Chronicle (7/0)
            Borrowing from too many movies to count, Rocket Science botches that brew in an unwieldy slew of ...

By Liz Braun of Jam! Movies (7/0)
            Rocket Science is wise and funny and often surprising, a nice touch in moviedom, where predictabl...

                         Reviews of Rocket Science
By Andrea Chase of Killer Movie Reviews (7/0)
            Never stoops to the tawdriness of the merely conventional or the expected. It is droll, wicked, a...

By Beth Accomando of KPBS.org (7/0)
            Rocket Science is smart, funny, and genuine. It avoids a pat Hollywood ending for something riche...

By Kyle Smith of KyleSmithOnline.com (7/0)
            A frightening memorandum from a dismal and mysterious dungeon: high school.

By Josh Bell of Las Vegas Weekly (7/0)
            Enough about Rocket Science is genuinely endearing that it comes out okay in the end.

By Glenn Whipp of Los Angeles Daily News (7/0)
            ...a quirky coming-of-age story (is there any other kind these days?) full of wry Wes Anderson-st...

By Pete Hammond of Maxim (7/0)
            There should be no debate that this little gem deserves to be as big a hit as it was at Sundance.

                         Reviews of Rocket Science
By Matt Pais of Metromix.com (7/0)
            Destined to be severely overrated.

By Colin Covert of Minneapolis Star Tribune (7/0)
            A strong contender to become a student classic.

By Luke Y. Thompson of New Times (7/0)
            This may be the most realistic high school underdog comedy since Welcome to the Dollhouse, if you...

By Lou Lumenick of New York Post (7/0)
            ...a quirkily disarming high-school comedy...

By Stephen Holden of New York Times (7/0)
            ...tender but hardheaded...

By Frank Swietek of One Guy's Opinion (6/1)
            Like its characters--and unlike those in most pictures set in high school--this movie is smart.

                         Reviews of Rocket Science
By Scott Tobias of Onion AV Club (7/0)
            It's a high-concept idea that Blitz executes without the usual payoffs.

By Steven Rea of Philadelphia Inquirer (7/0)
            Blitz captures the melancholy, the rage, the wackiness and drama of adolescence, and he gets winn...

By Stephen Saito of Premiere Magazine (7/0)
            As fate would have it, Rocket Science might prove to be the handiwork of a burgeoning ci...

By Gary Goldstein of Reel.com (7/0)
            A special little picture that resonates long after it's over.

By Laura Clifford of Reeling Reviews (7/0)
            ...a slight coming of age tale with some natural moments, yes, but also with obvious humor (when ...

By James Berardinelli of ReelViews (7/0)
            The problem with Rocket Science is that the character at the center of the drama isn't very energ...

                         Reviews of Rocket Science
By Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com (7/0)
            Self-consciously quirky on the outside, this gentle teenage fable has an affecting, openhearted c...

By Sean Means of Salt Lake Tribune (7/0)
            Thompson is an engaging young actor who keeps things grounded when Blitz gets a little too precio...

By Peter Hartlaub of San Francisco Chronicle (7/0)
            Rocket Science has the makings of either a tragedy or a crowd-pleasing underdog story, but writer...

By Eric Melin of Scene-Stealers.com (7/0)
            It is not always a deal-killer to step outside the trappings of realism, but the bland visuals do...

By Paula Nechak of Seattle Post-Intelligencer (7/0)
            With the grace of a young Edward Norton, Thompson is a real find.

By Rich Cline of Shadows on the Wall (7/0)
            A fiercely personal and yet engaging--and often outright hysterical--look into a young man on the...

                         Reviews of Rocket Science
By Tim Evans of Sky Movies (7/0)
            It's a small, gently understated film and a poignant tale of a young lad trying find his true voi...

By Nick Schager of Slant Magazine (7/0)
            Quirky, quirky, quirky goes Rocket Science. Round, round, round roll my eyes.

By Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat of Spirituality and Practice (7/0)
            One of the year's most endearing coming-of-age stories.

By Joe Williams of St. Louis Post-Dispatch (7/0)
            Darker than Little Miss Sunshine, tougher than Napoleon Dynamite, Rocket Sc...

By Neil Smith of thelondonpaper (7/0)
            A witty, touching and offbeat spin on the coming-of-age genre that also offers an amusing look in...

By Trevor Johnston of Time Out (4/3)
            There’s a lovely, fragile movie here; if only Blitz had had the faith to let it stand on its own ...

                         Reviews of Rocket Science
By Mark Holcomb of Time Out New York (7/0)
            Blitz gets too much mileage out of a pair of kooky (or kookily) Korean neighbors, but even that’s...

By Peter Howell of Toronto Star (7/0)
            [Director] Blitz has succumbed to that most pernicious of Sundance afflictions: pandemic quirkine...

By Ken Fox of TV Guide's Movie Guide (7/0)
            Teenage angst and adolescent agony are the stuff of sharp, observant comedy this quirky, wonderfu...

By Claudia Puig of USA Today (7/0)
            Smart, witty and blessedly unpredictable.

By Justin Chang of Variety (7/0)
            This unusually voluble comedy is as eloquent about love, self-realization and adolescent angst as...

By Matthew Turner of ViewLondon (7/0)
            Enjoyably offbeat comedy drama with likeable characters and a terrific script, though its relentl...

                         Reviews of Rocket Science
By Jim Ridley of Village Voice (7/0)
            What makes the first fiction feature from documentarian Blitz persuasive is its late-film detour ...

By Ray Greene of Boxoffice Magazine (3/4) No reference
            This is bleak, graveyard humor, bordering on nihilism, but Rocket Science manages to put it acros...

By Jeff Vice of Deseret News, Salt Lake City (6/1) No reference
            Blitz's dialogue is often clever, and the young cast members impress, particularly relative newco...

By Nell Minow of Movie Mom at Yahoo! Movies (6/1) No reference
            Thompson and Kendricks and the debate scenes make this one of the best coming-of-age stories in m...

By Lisa Rose of Newark Star-Ledger (6/1) No reference
            The thing the film lacks -- besides originality -- is a character arc that keeps the audience int...

By Jan Stuart of Newsday (6/1) No reference
            Blitz's one-man revenge of the nerds continues with this narrative-feature debut, a smartypants c...

                         Reviews of Rocket Science
By Mike Russell of Oregonian (6/1) No reference
            A dry, vicious and deeply moving little comedy that sort of takes the structure of a teen sports ...

By Gary Thompson of Philadelphia Daily News (6/1) No reference
            The kind of character that Hal develops into in the face of adversity lasts forever. High school ...

By Tom Charity of Total Film (3/4) No reference
            Backed by a fine cast (including sardonic narrator Alec Baldwin), there’s no argument: Blitz is a...

By Desson Thomson of Washington Post (3/4) No reference
            Rocket Science not only feels our collective pain, it makes us laugh wickedly at the memories.

By Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune (3/4) Not Reachable
            Jeffrey Blitz's Rocket Science doesn't quite work but is worth seeing anyway.

By Chris Hewitt (St. Paul) of St. Paul Pioneer Press (4/3) Not Reachable
            Deftly repurposes stuff you're already familiar with.

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Production Companies
Duly Noted
Rocket Science

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