“TERRI”Screenplay Written by Patrick de Witt
Directed by Azazel Jacobs
*** ½ (three and a half stars)
For Terri Thompson, it certainly is.
Whenever I have been asked if I would like to take a trip back to my teenage years, perhaps via some sort of strange “Wayback Machine,” I always answer with a resounding “No.” As I have always said, my adolescence was not a tortured existence by any means. I had my share of good times and I now greatly appreciate the school I attended and the people I shared those formative years with more than ever. But that said, I was never comfortable in my own skin, a standard condition of the teenage experience, and therefore, that almost crushing insecurity is nothing I would ever wish to re-live. I have often written about how my love of music, writing and the films of John Hughes were essentially my high school survival guide. But, I have to admit that I wished that there was an adult I trusted enough and was close to enough that I felt that I could communicate my fears to and perhaps have gained a sense of perspective from as they have lived through what I was experiencing. As I watched Director Azazel Jacobs’ “Terri,” I wanted to be that protective, sympathetic adult for Terri Thompson. I empathized with him, not through any sense of maudlin theatrics, but because I just wanted to be able to tell him, as the current campaign states, that things will get better.
“Terri” stars Jacob Wysocki in the title role right at the point where he precariously teetering over the edge of an emotional downward spiral. Abandoned by his parents (who are never seen), Terri lives with, and is forced to care for, his cantankerous Uncle James (Creed Bratton), who is most likely ailing from Alzheimer’s disease. Terri is perpetually late for school, increasingly reluctant to participate in class activities and his grades are gradually slipping. He is constantly teased and bullied at school due to his girth and to make matters worse, Terri has taken to dressing himself in pajamas at almost all times, simply because “they’re comfortable on me.” And for the final blow, Terri houses an intense crush upon the cute and sexually curious and adventurous Heather (Olivia Crocicchia).
Sensing a series of red flags, Terri is called into the office Vice Principal Mr. Fitzgerald (the wonderful John C. Reilly), who quickly arranges for Terri to hold private meetings with him every Monday just for the two of them to talk and check in with each other. Terri begins to build an attachment to the oddly loquacious Fitzgerald, an attachment that is tested once he discovers that Fitzgerald regularly holds similar conferences with other troubled kids in school. Once assured that Fitzgerald does not see him or any of the other kids as “monsters” and that his attempts at building relationship with the student body outcasts are true, Terri and Mr. Fitzgerald embark upon a tentative friendship, which then spirals into new, tentative friendships with the abrasive Chad (Bridger Zadina) and a potential romance with Heather.
As I previously stated. Director Azazel Jacobs’ “Terri” is a sad little film. Not a depressing one by any means. Just a tenderly melancholic one, a feat that is accomplished not through any sort of contrived tragedy but through an autumnal atmosphere and mostly through the concerned and caring observations of its titular character during a pivotal period in his young life.
Jacobs utilizes a quiet, meditative approach to this overly familiar material of teen angst. It is more impressionistic and therefore, more poetic especially as Terri’s isolation in accentuates by the fact he and his Uncle live in a solitary house deep in the woods, for example. Another lovely sequence, featuring Terri and Mr. Fitzgerald roaming around inside of an empty high school on an early Saturday morning captured the ghostly magic of rummaging around a location that regularly houses so much bustling life as well as creating a sense of peacefulness inside of place that contains so much emotional turbulence.
I appreciated that Jacobs allowed his film to function with scant dialogue filled with appropriately awkward pauses and spaces as these are characters who are so troubled with finding the right things to say. I found it to be very fitting that the film’s sweetest and most delicate exchanges between Terri and Heather occur through written notes passed back and forth during their shared Home Economics class.
Jacobs pulls out all of the stops during an extended and terrific sequence late in the film, which essentially begins as Terri’s hoped for first date of sorts with Heather. His plans are rudely interrupted by the troubled Chad, who then not only refuses to leave Terri’s home but hopes to usurp Heather for himself via some pilfered alcohol. This stretch of the film, I found to be especially remarkable as these three kids are essentially left to emotionally fend for themselves…together. It is a sequence of dares and challenges, connections and painful embarrassments and I have to say that it nearly touched the neighborhood outskirts of John Hughes’ masterpiece “The Breakfast Club” (1985) as it had these three teenagers in an enclosed location all attempting to figure out what each one of them means to the other as well as themselves. So much was accomplished with so very little and I applaud Jacobs for creating a sequence filled with unforced tension and heartbreak.
Jacob Wysocki elicits a wonderfully sensitive performance as Terri. He never once pleads through the camera for an audience’s sympathy. He just exists and embodies, giving this character a pureness of soul that I would think any of us would want and wish to protect. John C. Reilly also achieves a delicate balance as Mr. Fitzgerald as we can easily believe him as a school authority figurehead but also as the misfit teenager he once was and most likely the misfit adult he continues to be. His advice to Terri is always presented as matter-of-fact truths of the human condition and is sense of forwardness and tact makes him that very adult Terri, and all of the school’s misfit kids, need to have in their respective corners.
“Terri” is indeed one of those films where nothing much actually happens but I urge you to please not allow that to deter you if you choose to see this film, which is now available on DVD. It is a minutely observed yet hugely empathetic film that never overplays its hand or drowns in that independent film quirkiness. It never says and shows more that it absolutely has to, which may prove to be frustrating for some viewers who wish for the film to have more of an obviously depicted point.
But, dear readers, trust me, when you take in the sight of a tall, overweight teenage boy who wears pajamas sadly skulking through the woods, that image gives you all that you need to create a sense of empathy and understanding more than any manufactured situation and drama could possibly give you.
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