SXSW Review: Terri

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Terri

There may be no crueler creature on Earth than the average teenager. Slaves to conformity even when trying to be nonconformist, one of teenagers' favorite pastimes is making life miserable for anyone who varies too far from the holy teenage trifecta of great looks, great clothes and great social skills.

The unfortunate titular character of coming-of-age indie film Terri has none of these attributes. Obese, forever clad in pajamas and a quiet loner not really by choice, Terri (Jacob Wysocki) is the quintessential tormented, friendless fat kid who retreats into his own world to escape his schoolmates' endless cruelty. Terri, which screened three times at SXSW, is the quirkiest movie I saw at the festival, an entertaining but oddly written story of a misfit teen's struggle to fit into his inhospitable small-town world.

Terri lives in a dirty, cluttered house with his Uncle James (Creed Bratton), himself an oddball with an unnamed, Alzheimer's-like illness that sets him adrift between complete mental clarity and a trancelike fog of unawareness. The two rely completely on each other for companionship and compassion, as they seem to have no family or friends. Terri's main purpose in life is helping James get through the often frightening moments when his disease takes over. (In one instance, Terri catches James staring glassy-eyed while cooking at the stove, completely oblivious to the burning food in front of him.) When James is lucid, he reciprocates by being Terri's gentle mentor and only friendly human contact.

Terri's penchant for tardiness runs him afoul of Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly), an eccentric school principal who yells at misbehaving students to entertain his wheezing secretary, Ms. Hamish (Mary Anne McGarry). To help Terri deal with his sorry, rock-bottom place in the high school pecking order, Fitzgerald begins weekly individual counseling sessions with the teen. Much as Terri has no use for Fitzgerald's help, he does develop a bond with him when Fitzgerald explains that he also was treated as a "monster" in high school.

Terri is one of a small group of "special" students who must endure counseling sessions with Fitzgerald, who arguably is "special" himself. Terri develops a friendship with another student in the group, Chad (Bridger Zadina), a slight, rebellious frequent flyer at Fitzgerald's office with a penchant for pulling out his own hair.

Terri also gains another unlikely friend, the luscious but troubled Heather (Olivia Crocicchia), who joins the ranks of the tormented after engaging in an ill-advised public sexual act. She befriends Terri when he rescues her from yet another humiliating round of taunts; he's shocked when she asks if she can visit him at home to meet this Uncle James he's always talking about. In Terri's world, this is not something that happens -- ever.

From here, the story goes in sexually and psychologically intriguing directions I won't reveal. It suffices to say that Terri, Heather and Chad are deeply wounded kids looking for someone -- anyone -- who will give a damn about them, or at least treat them with a little respect. They're all self-loathing messes, and Fitzgerald isn't much better off.

Terri is a bitterly funny film, a sharp and witty take on the hell that is adolescence for most of us. The tone is wholly compassionate and likeably off kilter, creating a world in which every character is an oddball in some way. (This world is highly strange, but entirely accurate. Aren't we all oddballs in some way?) Terri is decidedly dark, but not depressing; it's just wry enough to keep things from getting overly glum. My only real criticism is that the movie's ambitions are modest, and its ideas and characters aren't new. But what it lacks in scope and freshness, it more than makes up for in good-naturedly barbed storytelling.

Wysocki is perfectly cast as Terri, totally natural as a lonely but well meaning kid whom everyone would like if only they'd look beyond his rolls of flesh. Wysocki inhabits all of Terri's personalities quite well, from the devoted caretaker to the pained loner who finds solace in nature to the typical teen who's both fascinated with and deathly afraid of sex.

Reilly's performance is reliably dead-on, as we would expect in a role that's become his trademark: a slightly goofy but likeably self-effacing everyman who somehow survives despite himself. (Fitzgerald and Reilly's John in Cyrus are very much the same person.) Zadina and Crocicchia also are great as teens in a world of hurt, every bit as bitter as Terri albeit without his physical baggage. Crocicchia is especially nuanced as Heather, all bad-girl sexuality hiding lost-girl pain.

It's intriguing to see Bratton in a dramatic role that could not be more unlike the hilariously deadpan one he plays on The Office. (For those who aren't familiar with the sitcom, Creed Bratton plays ... Creed Bratton.) Reticent, long suffering, physically deteriorating and mostly solemn, Bratton's James is both the strong and weak one in his relationship with Terri. I've always had a hunch that Bratton has the acting chops for far more complex roles than the trippier version of himself on The Office; in Terri, he proves my hunch right.

A funny and entertainingly odd take on the adolescent (and adult) desire to be accepted, Terri is a modest but finely made film that will ring true with anyone who's ever felt like an outsider looking in.