The Way Way Back (2013)

Coming of age comedy-drama about a 14 old boy named Duncan (Liam James) who spends a summer at a beach house (in the north east somewhere) with his mom (Toni Collette) and her jerk boyfriend (Steve Carell), meets a girl (AnnaSophia Robb), gets a job and a mentor (Sam Rockwell, ingratiating) at a water park and discovers his self confidence. Allison Janney gives a very enjoyable performance as a talkie, lush neighbor, Maya Rudolph, Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet round out the main cast. Co-writers and directors Jim Rash and Nat Faxon also appear as employees of the water park, in fact a lot of the staff of the water park is kind of old, mildly creepy. In fact the slightly mixed bag of messages this film has about inter sexually relationships might make someone a decent term paper. ***