Where Do the Introverted Teen Boys Go After a Life-Changing Summer?
An examination of the sensitive and timid teenage boy character through ‘No Hard Feelings’ and ‘The Way Way Back.’
Hollywood loves returning to certain character types that served them well over the years. The awkward and bashful high school boy is a popular one — to the point of virtually being a cliché — that brought plenty of commercial and critical successes in the past few decades. But we don’t need to go too far back to find some great examples that were genuinely touching and amusing in all the right ways. In Nat Faxon and Jim Rash’s outstanding The Way Way Back (which celebrated its 10th anniversary in July), Liam James’ protagonist fits the "introverted adolescent boy changed by an epic summer" description superbly. But before taking a deeper look at that often-praised indie gem, first, we need to talk about Andrew Barth Feldman in the recent surprise hit that’s Gene Stupnitsky’s No Hard Feelings.
Although it's disguised as a raunchy summer rom-com, Stupnitsky’s film is more than the sum of its parts would suggest. Beyond its solidly written script by the director and John Phillips, No Hard Feelings’ success is mainly due to its relative newcomer’s delightfully obtuse and clumsy performance as Percy. He’s a meek and withdrawn 19-year-old who spends his last summer in the idyllic small town of Montauk, dating the broke 32-year-old bombshell Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence) before attending college.
Percy is a good guy, maybe even too innocent and obedient for a 19-year-old white dude, coming from a wealthy family. Painfully dorky and juvenile, he's awful at picking up on social cues (public interactions generally make him anxious and insecure), especially when they involve attractive women. He’s also an inept flirter, oblivious even to the mere possibility that someone like Maddie (older and sexy) would go out with him when she hits on him at the animal shelter he works at. His intuition isn’t wrong: Maddie is set up by Percy’s parents to “date” their son in exchange for a car that she’d need to work (as an Uber driver) to be able to keep the home her mother left her after she passed.
Though the film utilizes Lawrence as the flashy spectacle here (certainly to market the movie), as No Hard Feelings slowly unfolds, it becomes more and more apparent that the real star of it is Feldman. Sure, his character is typical and instantly recognizable, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to get it right — especially beside an actress who’s in full power of her looks and comedic chops. But Feldman lends a charming spark to the role, fully committing to a mostly quiet and restrained act before sliding into a more vulnerable and sincere performance.
Although Percy is already an adult, he's still a child at heart, transforming before our eyes throughout the summer. One of his key coming-of-age moments is the piano scene where he not only demonstrates an awe-inspiring ability by performing his version of Hall & Oates’ “Maneater” but also fills it with an emotional maturity that catches Maddie (and us) by surprise. The actor downplays it at first, but as he gets further into the song, his charisma takes over, which fittingly falls in line with Percy’s personal growth. For a second, he seems like the guy he's supposed to be for his age before retreating into his shell. That scene is the first sign of Percy’s maturing as he’s starting to see the outline of a man he one day will grow into.
It's a turning point, later followed by the realization of the lie that Maddie and his parents perpetuated in the first place. He’s still got a long way to go — during which a lot of bonkers stuff will happen for comedy’s sake — but Percy is slowly entering manhood from being a timid child. That quality comes to fruition in the movie’s final act when he and Maddie have an honest conversation after the slapstick car incident. Then and there, No Hard Feelings deftly concludes on a note of genuine friendship instead of a love story and finally fully leans into being an endearing and delightful coming-of-age comedy — which brings us back to the other triumph in the genre, The Way Way Back, and its protagonist, Duncan.
No matter where I look on the internet, everyone seems to agree that The Way Way Back is one of the best coming-of-age movies of the 2010s that people slept on for quite a while. It’s an odd thing, considering it was a box office hit (making $26 million on a $5 million budget) with a star-studded cast (including Sam Rockwell, Steve Carell, and Toni Collette) and a fantastic script about a bashful 14-year-old boy vacationing with his mother and her new boyfriend in a small beach town in Massachusetts.
Duncan, played by Liam James in his first leading role, is verging on the edge of that age when you’re not a little kid anymore but not entirely a teenager either. It's a pivotal stage of growing up responsible for many of our cherished and loathed memories as adults. With his hunchback posture, taciturn personality, and moody demeanor, Duncan serves as a poster boy for all the guys who had a hard time not being noticed in high school. He’s not entirely hopeless but needs a nudge from someone cool to start developing some self-confidence. By chance, he finds that person in Owen (Rockwell), a rag-tag, goofy middle-aged dude working in the local water park. He doesn't only become a mentor for Duncan but helps him fully blossom into his personality. By giving him a job, he puts his faith in him, which the kid welcomes with gusto and gratitude.
As things back at the beach house with his mom’s boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell phenomenally playing against type) get more volatile by the day, Duncan spends more time at the park and finds a community that embraces him. He grows fond of the employees who treat him with love and respect, which for any young child, goes a long way. The place becomes his escape (quite literally), even though keeping it a secret kinda turns it into a second life his family knows nothing about (and only finds out in the finale).
James portrays Duncan with such a bona fide authenticity and gauche charm that identifying with him becomes effortless. He earns our sympathy through a combination of quiet charisma and delicate vulnerability, which he reveals more and more of as the plot progresses. It’s a difficult task to convey the “weird kid” compellingly in any picture, but James has the talent to nail it down. He delivers something extra in small and big moments, reveling in Duncan’s awkwardness and insecurity and turning them into a sympathetic trait. Whether it’s a dance contest at the water park, an impertinent and threatening conversation with Trent, or a romantic moment on the beach at night with the girl he has a crush on, James never fails to quietly impress.
Yet the most impressive feat of him (and the film overall) is the connection he creates with the audience through hope. He reassures us that no matter how shy and introverted we are, there’s always a chance to catch a break and find the people who don't only understand but also help us grow and even feel cool. At an age when everything feels like life or death, when being popular and liked is our lifeline, Duncan’s heart-warming journey serves as an unlikely triumph and inspiration for those who desperately need one.
“But where do these insecure teenagers go after a spectacular summer,” you might ask. Well, on-screen, Percy heads to college with a clearer sense of who he is and a new friend he can count on (who may or may not took his virginity), while Duncan is on his way home from a vacation that likely changed his life — or, at the very least, gave him a healthy dose of self-esteem, true friends, and his first kiss.
Offscreen the picture is a little murkier. Despite nailing his first leading role, James (now 27) hasn't got the chances he would've deserved in the past decade. Though he appeared in decent-to-good TV shows (The Killing, The Family, White House Plumbers), his only other feature credit after The Way Way Back comes from the movie Speech and Debate, which barely anyone heard of (probably for a reason). Feldman, on the other hand, is still pretty young at 21, and he hopefully goes on to have a career that lets him fulfill his potential as a promising talent. But regardless of what the future holds for them, they both gave us a memorable performance we can always come back to. And I can't speak for everyone, but I surely will.
Last week, I reviewed Netflix’s Painkiller for Looper, which was a decent effort to summarize the opioid crisis even if it fell far behind the painstakingly made Dopesick.
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