LA Film Festival Centerpiece Premiere JOSHUA Screens at the National Theatre
 Written by: Naomi Wiggins

On Tuesday night, June 26, 2007, the LA Film Festival's Centerpiece Premiere Joshua swept into the packed National Theatre in Westwood Village with a resonating and terrifying hush. This slow- moving but intensely frightening Fox Searchlight picture will enjoy a limited release in the US in early July and, given its impressive cast, evocative cinematography, and engrossing story line, should garner a heap of success in the long run.

Directed by George Ratliff and starring Sam Rockwell, Vera Farmiga, Celia Weston, Dallas Roberts, Michael McKean and Jacob Kogan, Joshua is a psychological thriller filled with horrors so feasible the film feels a mere step away from reality. It is this unnerving and uncertain connection to real life that Writer/Director George Ratliff and co-writer David Gilbert flawlessly spin throughout dialogue, character and scene. Taking on the nature vs. nurture debate with gusto, Ratliff explores the idea of ending up with a child you can't seem to handle and don't know how to love.

Joshua begins with a steep plunge into the easy, carefree and seemingly perfect life of the Cairn family. Living in a posh apartment in Manhattan, a jubilant Abby Cairn (Vera Farmiga) has just given birth to her second child - a daughter named Lily. Her happy husband Brad (Sam Rockwell) is playing the stock market for a private brokerage firm and bringing home plenty of bacon. It would seem that life for Abby and Brad is perfect . . . well, almost.

A piano prodigy who doesn't like soccer (or basketball for that matter), Brad and Abby's son Joshua is the black cloud on their otherwise clear horizon. His formal reserve, unnerving stare and personal oddities alienate him from his freewheeling, happy-go-lucky parents. However, as the polished and perfect veneer of the Cairn's idyllic life slowly dissipates, it seems that the unnatural Joshua is holding all the cards.

With Abby spinning easily out of control, Brad's descent takes a bit more time. He attempts to confide his fears and suspicions to Abby's brother, Ned (Dallas Roberts) but his pleas fall on deaf ears. Amidst all the chaos, Joshua remains effortlessly calm, his stoic exterior begging the question - Will he . . . Is he . . . Does he know what he's doing?

As the virile and strong family man Brad Cairn, Sam Rockwell is utterly fantastic. His attention to the little details of daily life - tuning into his ipod on the way home from work, tossing the keys aside as he walks in the front door, giving his all in racket ball after a strenuous day at work - beautifully contribute to the fresh, genuine and real quality of Joshua. And while it is difficult to turn from Vera Farmiga's haunted eyes and unsettling quasi-insanity, Rockwell holds audience allegiance from start to finish.

Jacob Kogan's Joshua provides a deeply disturbing, deeply wonderful foil to Rockwell's lively Brad. Ratliff beautifully highlights the tug-o-war between Brad and Joshua, between terror and laughter, through humorous bits of dialogue fleshed out by Rockwell and Kogan's committed and honest performances. These moments of levity provide necessary respite and blessed reminders to breathe amidst the cloyingly claustrophobic chaos.

Nico Muhly's original music perfectly heightens already taut emotions and drops subtle (and not so subtle) hints of upcoming drama. Even when there is nothing particularly terrifying within a scene, the building music speaks eloquently and terrifyingly of what's to come. This, coupled with a flawlessly designed set teeming with glossy lights and vigorous, forceful colors, creates a morbid sense of impending doom that unnerves while it fascinates.

Deserving praise for his steady pacing throughout the film, Ratliff further merits accolades for his ending. Rather than coming to a placating conclusion that cleanly ties up each story, Ratliff leaves you hanging, taking Joshua to the only place it could go and not ring false. We are thus left with an incredible, mind- binding thriller that speaks of real, deep-seated fears that are easy to run from but not easy to escape.

Joshua 

 Charlie Bartlett - A Bit Rebellious But Has Its Heart in the Right Place
 Written by: Naomi Wiggins

If a kid is disobedient, irritable or given to bursts of anger (basically, if a kid is a kid) parents today immediately take them to a doctor and put them on Ritalin. Rather than struggling through the concepts of discipline and self-control, parents step back from their "troubled children" and seek out professional medical help.

In many ways, this action is a self-fulfilling prophecy for when parents step away, becoming distant and wrapped in the responsibilities and cares of their own world, children then begin to develop the problems they "supposedly" have - often times in an attempt to simply get the attention they want from their parents in the first place. It is this twisted dance that the engaging and remarkably fresh Charlie Bartlett revolves around.

Charlie Bartlett is a typical teen - Sure he's been kicked out of every private school he's attended, his mother Marilyn is stuck in her own affluent world and he is chauffeured around town in a limo - but at his core, Charlie just wants to be liked . . . and he's found that people like him when he listens.

Starting classes at a new public school, Charlie can't figure out how to be popular . . . until he enlists bad boy Murphey Bivens (Tyler Hilton) to run interference while he provides therapy and prescription medication to the masses in a deserted Boys bathroom. His unconventional ways soon earn him the attention of the pretty Susan (Kat Dennings) and her struggling father, Principal Gardner (Robert Downey Jr.).

After stirring up trouble, driving a wedge between father and daughter and vaulting to the verge of expulsion once again, Charlie begins to see a different side of Principal Gardner while Gardner notes the holes in Charlie's armor. The two begin to poke around each others entrenched defenses, ultimately discovering that they have a good deal more in common than they initially thought.

The script is oddly selective, at times choppy and often lacking in overall cohesiveness. But despite the fact that it feels as if editor Alan Baumgarten chose to highlight scenes most films would simply give the boot, this film is remarkably fresh. By shunning stereotypical rebellious teenage characters, first time director Jon Poll turns a bright, beaming spotlight on an unconventional tale of an unconventional teen.

While the question of whether an off-balance feeling was intentionally cemented into the script by writer Gustin Nash and developed further in each scene by Poll isn't clear answered, it is a question that falls by the wayside in light of the powerhouse performances that embolden and enliven this film from beginning to end. Lead Anton Yelchin is absolutely phenomenal. He has such a genuine, unaffected presence that, much like his character Charlie, he simply pulls people in. His face is mesmerizing, clearly displaying his desire to be popular without the slightest hitch.

Robert Downey Jr. is stellar as usual. With the recent Zodiac, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, A Scanner Darkly and now, Charlie Bartlett, glittering on his resume, it's clear this reformed bad boy back is firmly back on track. The intensity he brings to the frustrated and depressed Gardner is magnetic and a later scene with Yelchin is frighteningly fantastic.

Little known, Tyler Hilton (Walk the Line) and Kat Dennings (The 40-Year Old Virgin) are both impressive in their supporting roles. Hilton's pill-pedaling, bad-boy Murphey is dead-on while Dennings sneaks succinctly under your guard and dazzles in the role of Susan Gardner. Hope Davis doesn't conjure up as striking a performance as usual (thinking Proof here) but she is still perfectly disconnected from reality as Charlie's mother, Marilyn Bartlett.

Overall, Charlie Bartlett is enjoyable, thought provoking and engaging. With the right marketing campaign, it will do well with both teenage and adult audiences as it offers genuine teen characters and a fresh, no-holds- barred look into the age-old struggle between adult and adolescent. It is a film that, in many ways, mirrors its lead character - a bit rebellious but has its heart in the right place.

Charlie Bartlett