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WEEK IN REVIEW
Saturday


Fireworks blamed in Marysville house fire
Sailors for a day: Naval Station Everett opens ...
Edmonds backs off red-light cameras
Friday
Armed man shot by deputies in Arlington
Police ID make of vehicle in fatal hit-and-run
Boeing's 6-month tally: 1 net order
Thursday


One fire rips through $2 million home, another ...
Swine flu claims 2nd victim in Snohomish County
Jetty Island firefight continues; hot weather ...
Wednesday


Fire District 1 negotiates to take over service...
Snohomish County population rising fast since 2...
Honey's owners indicted by feds
Tuesday


Mobile home tenants along Snohomish River told ...
Lincoln to leave Everett in 2013
Put on your sailor's cap and explore Naval Stat...
Monday


Disabled people will be left without a ride
You'll soon have 4,500 reasons to trade in that...
Pay hike deserved, Monroe chief says
Sunday


1,670 local students in county are without homes
Monroe's business gets done in secret
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CONTACT THE HERALD
Melanie Munk, Features Editor
munk@heraldnet.com
 
Published: Friday, August 10, 2007

Bright comedy's a bit derivative

On its own, "Rocket Science" is a jim-dandy little comedy, wellwritten and acted, with a sharp sense of the ups and downs of youth.

If only I could forget how much this movie borrows from Wes Anderson's films ("Rushmore" and "Royal Tenenbaums" in particular), I'm sure I would be raving about its originality. But it does feel like Anderson Junior.

We are in suburban New Jersey, home to young Hal Hefner (Reece Daniel Thompson), who lives with his newly divorced mom and a bizarre, bullying older brother (Vincent Piazza). Hal is a bright kid but a stutterer, an affliction he tries to cure by joining the debate team at Plainsboro.

Along with this unlikely debate-team struggle, Hal experiences the angst of first love, in his puppydog crush on brassy debating champ Ginny (Anna Kendrick). And he seeks out a former debater (Nicholas D'Agosto), a legend in the annals of Plainsboro debating, for mentoring.

Writer-director Jeffrey Blitz cruises along in a confident, effortless groove for the first hour of the movie. The details of life in high school are hilariously exact, such as the recruitment sketch for the debate team that has two students dressed up in a re-enactment of the Lincoln-Douglas debate ("Lincoln's a chick!" an anonymous heckler calls out from the back).

Home life is also well drawn, as Hal's world changes when his mother begins dating a very enthusiastic neighbor. The neighbor's son (Aaron Yoo, from "Disturbia") seems to have unrequited feelings for Hal.

It's only in the final third that "Rocket Science" loses some of its comic momentum, as though Blitz realized that the high-school debating world isn't actually all that colorful a backdrop after all. A strong final sequence restores some of the good will.

Blitz directed the hit documentary "Spellbound," the one about the kids competing in a national spelling bee. He's one of those rare filmmakers who can hop from nonfiction to fiction without batting an eye.

The comic timing is impeccable in this film, and he's good with actors. Newcomer Reece Daniel Thompson, who clearly has one too many names, is a Vancouver, B.C., native with a bright future.

And a final kudo to the music by Eef Barzelay, from the band Clem Snide. It's a bright score, even if it sounds a little like the films of Wes Anderson.

Reece Daniel Thompson stars in "Rocket Science."

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