Gavin Wiesen‘s The Art of Getting By is an independent film for those that consider Olive Garden to be authentic Italian food. It’s palatable enough but you know there’s far better places you could have eaten. At the cinema, I’d be glad to recommend whatever auditorium is showing Midnight in Paris as an alternative.

Freddie Highmore stars as George, a high school senior rebelling against something – or going through something; I’m not sure which. He falls for – but lacks the confidence – to close the deal with Sally (Emma Roberts). I’m not sure George is an “artist” because he refuses to settle on one path (which I admire) but he’s aimless and comes close to failing out of high school. We don’t see much of his life before meeting Sally, so his mental state pre meeting her isn’t as established as it might have been. Both have dysfunctional home lives, George’s parents are on the edge of eviction and fighting about it – Sally’s mother (Elizabeth Reaser) is a recent divorce living a party girl life style.

Reaser’s casting points out my own bias against New York City set romantic comedies: I expect something more. Granted Whit Stillman has fallen off the face of the earth and not every film can come close to his three comic masterpieces: Metropolitan, Barcelona and The Last Days of Disco. They’ve raised the bar and poisoned my own expectations for New York City romantic comedies, where I expect characters to have an energy and an intelligence feeding off one of the greatest cities in the world. Reaser had starred in one of the worst films – mostly because it was about intelligent and educated people finding themselves in an unfunny love triangle – Puccini for Beginners. Coming-of-age films should get a little more slack  as 17-year-olds shouldn’t sound like 40+ year old screenwriters, or worse, what 40+ year old screen writers think they sound like. New York City is a city full of smart kids, particularly in the privileged circles George and Sally intersect with.

This one fails because it’s stolen many elements for no good reason. It hasn’t put them to good use – it’s as bland as any film. If we transplanted these characters so some small town on the lakes of who really cares in the middle of Ohio, I might be more forgiving. Bandslam, another coming-of-age story about immerging artists set in suburbs fed off the energy of New York City, even if its characters only took a field trip.

The Art of Getting By is maddening with clichés, even if it’s more likeably that it should be. Consider Dustin (Michael Angarano), an older artist befriended by Sally and George – he roots for them to get together even while he’s attracted to Sally. They’re relationship develops into something as ambiguous as George and Sally’s relationship – no one has aspirations to make a decision, therein lies the art of getting by. George is forced to complete his entire senior year of high school in three weeks in a montage sequence that isn’t entirely uncommon, although super human. This even includes painting one picture of something he’s been dying to say but never could, and here’s another place the film borrows. Must every challenge such as this end with a portrait of a women? Isn’t that so, I don’t know – 1948 when the far better New York City artist in love drama A Portrait of Jenny had its theatrical run?

Throughout the film I was reminded of a quote from Stillman’s The Last Days of Disco – a character ponders Hamlet, wondering if the notion of “To thine own self be true” should apply if “Thine own self is not so good.” George, like The Last Days of Disco’s Des should be looking to change his context, easier said that done – but don’t we go to the escapist movies to see people that are more interesting than we are?

Note: The film had debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival under the title Homework. It is now in wide release.

Grade: C-

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