'Wackness' is a trite coming-of-age film

Like "Definitely, Maybe" from earlier this year, the coming-of-age dramedy "The Wackness" asks us to dig deep within our nostalgia wells and reminisce about the mid-1990s.

Summer of 1994, to be exact.

That's when writer-director Jonathan Levine graduated from high school, like his film's sullen hero, Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck), who deals pot from an Italian ices cart in the New York City heat. (Levine, though, protests in the film's production notes, "I never sold weed, I swear.")

The setting means we're in store for plenty of rap (Notorious B.I.G., Tribe Called Quest), references to Kurt Cobain and "Forrest Gump," Giuliani-bashing and privileged white kids liberally peppering their speech with words like "mad" and "dope."

It all feels self-conscious and it makes Luke feel like an annoying type, even though Peck, a long way from the Nickelodeon sitcom "Drake & Josh," shows some believable glimmers of vulnerability beneath the bravado.

In the months before leaving for college, Luke embarks on an unlikely friendship with his aging-hippie shrink, Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley with stringy hair and a wavering accent). At the same time, he makes the mistake of falling for the doctor's sexually precocious stepdaughter, Stephanie (Olivia Thirlby, Ellen Page's wisecracking sidekick in "Juno"). She's the one who provides the film's title: Since she's perpetually blithe and sunny, she insists she always sees the "dopeness" in things, while low-key Luke always sees the "wackness." Deep, huh?

Levine depicts all of this through de rigueur film-school tricks such as sped-up and slo-mo sequences and photos that come to life.

And because his storytelling techniques - and the story itself - are so familiar, it's hard to shake the nagging sensation that Levine has nothing new to say.

Luke grows up somewhat throughout the film, the three-act structure of which is marked by the months June, July and August written in colorful graffiti script; the other characters' main personality traits consist of chain smoking and doing every drug imaginable.

Dr. Squires, a regular customer of Luke's, goes on a climactic alcohol-coke-and-pill binge on Fire Island, for example. Ostensibly, this is meant to seem vital and daring. Instead, it just feels trite and hollow.

We have seen this movie so many times before - "Igby goes Down," "Running With Scissors," etc. - with its disaffected young people and the adults who behave in even more selfish, adolescent fashion. Luke's dad, for example, hopes to keep the family from being evicted from their Upper East Side apartment by holding out for a big business deal, but Luke is the only one bringing money into the house - even though it is through illegal means.

It's not that any of this is offensive from a moral standpoint, mind you. Rather, it's a matter of originality - or lack thereof.

We know that Luke will get his heart broken and will learn from the experience.

That's something to which we can all relate and it's probably the chief source of emotional authenticity in "The Wackness."

The one vague wild card is the presence of Mary-Kate Olsen as a second-generation flower child named Union. Her appearance has been much ballyhooed; in reality, she's in just two scenes, one of which requires her to make out with a hammered Kingsley inside the phone booth at a dive bar.

Now that really is wack.

• "The Wackness," a Sony Pictures Classics release, is rated R for pervasive drug use, language and some sexuality. Running time: 101 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.