Big Time Adolescence: Pete Davidson’s first great movie?
Pete Davidson is in all honesty one of my favorite current celebrities. He’s such an interesting guy. I’m not a fan of his stand up, but as an actor (even on Saturday Night Live) the dude has range. He’s not “Daniel Day Lewis” level acting but he can go all out for a role and make you believe he is the character he’s playing. In Big Time Adolescence, that’s no exception. The plot is pretty simplistic. A 16 year old kid is best friends with his sister’s ex-boyfriend (played by Davidson) and starts to adapt to his unorthodox behavior.
The Positives
The script gets the biggest applause from me. I went in expecting it to be some generic high school movie, but no. This movie is surprisingly DARK, and it’s not afraid to get too real too fast. The best part being that the tonal shifts never feel forced. Don’t get me wrong, when the movie is funny, it’s very funny, but it’s also not afraid to sucker punch you out of nowhere. I really appreciate director Jason Orley and Pete Davidson for doing something new with this concept and give us something that I think some of us can genuinely relate to. There are lines in here where I found myself saying “Wow, I’ve actually said that before.” Imagine Superbad, but with actual consequences. That’s what this is.
This is Pete Davidson’s very best performance. Although his character is a bad influence, he is genuinely likable. He’s not trying to make other people live the way that he lives, he’s just trying to have fun with his life. His character is a nice guy throughout, he just made some bad choices in life and is unfortunately not very self-aware. Davidson performed this character beautifully. I think if this movie was more well known, the character of Zeke would go down as one of the great movie characters of our generation.
Griffin Gluck has great chemistry with Davidson. Gluck’s performance just felt so authentic. There was never a moment where I went “that’s not how anyone his age would react.” He brings that level of adaptability, anxiety, and moments of confidence that any teenager has.
I also enjoyed the fact that the film did make some artistic choices. There are some great uses of editing and cinematography that left a big impact on me as I was watching. I love when comedies use editing to set up a joke or reference a joke, and this movie does just that.
The Negatives
Big Time Adolescence suffers the trope of “you think it would end at any moment.” The actual ending was perfect, but there are at least 2 or 3 scenes near the end where you just expect it to cut to credits, and it just bothered me.
I wish the supporting characters got a little bit more development. The only supporting characters that got some development were Mo’s girlfriend and Mo’s dad. They were great characters to follow but there are many other supporting characters that set themselves up as important but are really just there. For instance, Machine Gun Kelly as Zeke’s friend, and Thomas Barbusca as Mo’s friend. Machine Gun Kelly does a fine job performing his character but you know very little about him and unfortunately he’s in the movie a lot. Barbusca on the other hand…wow. He is incredibly annoying in this movie. Not only could you completely cut him out of the movie and nothing would change, but his character solely relies on “trying to be hip with the cool kids”. It didn’t work AT ALL. Thankfully he’s not in it too much, but he’s still obnoxious.
The Representation
It’s not very diverse. There is an attempt of it with Mo’s girlfriend. She’s very opinionated and knows when to stand up for herself. She doesn’t take crap from anyone, and in terms of representation, I can appreciate what they went for there. Unfortunately, she’s not in the movie too much. Most of the diversity here is brushed to the side. There are minorities in one or two scenes, but the most they get is just a singular line. I see that they were going for some diversity here, it just wasn’t enough.
Conclusion
The more I think about it, the more of a big time fan I am of Big Time Adolescence. It’s great to see Pete Davidson once again show that he has acting chops. It’s even better to know that it’s not afraid to get dark and REAL. This may be my favorite movie of 2020 so far. It’s on Hulu and I definitely recommend it.
