Not Your Normal Rendering of a Teenage Boy.

If you like Todd Solondz films – you’ll love this gem. It’s a neat take on the struggles of being a teenager, but it very much subverts all the normal conventions regarding such an attempt. What you have here is a film about a boy coming to term with the death of his mother, and more importantly - what he is (yes, the film is a pure existential exercise, oh perhaps not really). All the actors give splendid performances, and even though the directing is not as original as it might think it is, it definitely delivers (and more). But what stuck with me, after watching the film, was not the portrayal of the male teenage protagonist, but Brian Cox’s absolutely astonishing rendering of a extremely ambiguous old man, who, in the eye of the viewer, goes through a remarkable transformation. Also, the film – in all its weirdness and tragedy - is very funny, which doesn’t hurt either.