Thumbsucker

Justin throws himself and everyone around him into chaos when he attempts to break free from his addiction to his thumb.

A high-school senior finds that fate (and modern medicine) plays some interesting tricks with his personality in this dramatic comedy. Justin Conn (Lou Taylor Pucci) is a neurotic teenager who has a difficult time with his peers, especially Rebecca (Kelli Garner), a cute girl in his debate class with whom he is somewhat mutually infatuated. It isn't much better at home with his obnoxious younger brother Joel (Chase Offerle), his father, Mike (Vincent D'Onofrio), who is busy having a midlife crisis, and mother Audrey (Tilda Swinton), who's infatuated with one of her favorite TV actors (Benjamin Bratt). All this anxiety has to go somewhere, and Justin's manifestation of his troubles comes in the form of sucking his thumb, which makes him even more of an outcast. Dr. Perry Lyman (Keanu Reeves), an orthodontist who seems to double as a new age therapist, treats Justin with hypnosis; meanwhile, the school psychologist decides he has Attention Deficit Disorder, and treats him with medication. Suddenly, Justin stops sucking his thumb and becomes an outgoing overachiever, single-handedly taking his school debate team to the state championship. But Justin's relationshop with his debate coach, Mr. Geary (Vince Vaughn), becomes strained, and the boy tries to mold yet another new identity for himself. Thumbsucker was the first feature film from Mike Mills, who previously distinguished himself in commercials and music videos. — Mark Deming

An almost perfectly balanced combination of real-life adolescent awkwardness and laugh-out-loud comedy, writer/director Mike Mills' Thumbsucker is an absolute success. Lou Taylor Pucci shines in his first lead role in a feature film as the protagonist, Justin, and offers a portrayal that is nuanced, funny, and geared well for the camera. His performance, combined with Mills' directional choices, keeps the potentially cumbersome subject matter of a 17-year-old sucking his thumb from becoming too awkward for audiences to handle. Instead, after its initial placement in the film as a means of stage-setting, the habit becomes analogous to whatever coping mechanism a given viewer might understand. Additionally, performances by Tilda Swinton, Vincent D'Onofrio, Vince Vaughn, and Keanu Reeves are entertaining and, amazingly, are not the least bit distracting despite the actors' familiar faces. Each characterization is controlled; even Vaughn, who has made a name for himself in more absurdist comedies such as Dodgeball and The Wedding Crashers, keeps his performance as the eccentric high-school debate team coach reeled in, despite numerous opportunities to be over the top. In the end, what could easily have been an awkward satire or a series of reticent characters in dissonant settings turns out to be a fantastically relatable group of real people. — Cammila Albertson