The indie romance The Spectacular Now opened wide today and I checked it out. Wonderful movie. Fantastic, sweet, honest, and believable. I highly recommend everyone check it out. It’s basically a teen romance that’s been compared to Say Anything… it’s a fairly apt comparison even if Lloyd Dobler (Cusack) had his stuff together a bit more than the kid in this movie does… but there’s definitely shared DNA.

Basically, it’s the story of a messed up, fast-talking, self-proclaimed life of the party who meets a girl who’s far too good for him (and she neither realizes it nor cares).

It’s a cute and charming movie while also being subtle and unpreachy.

Miles Teller (the boy) is really good but Shailene Woodley is marvelous (she was also really good in The Descendants (with Clooney) and she’s been cast as the lead in the film version of Divergent).

It’s also very rated R for strong language, an intimate and honest sex scene, and a metric crapton of teenage drinking.

One of the finest examples of the unreliable narrator concept.

Score: 89