Thumbsucker

Director: Mike Mills
Year Released: 2005
Rating: 1.5

Irritating indie about people who refuse to grow up, centered around a teenager (Lou Pucci) inexplicably diagnosed with A.D.H.D. who receives life advice from a dentist/mystic (Keanu Reeves) and cannot stop sucking his thumb. The performances are decent, but Mills' direction is not, with almost every shot consisting of a slow pan to the right or featuring some obnoxiously cutesy song to contrast the on-screen disorder. If that wasn't enough, the third act consists of mostly speeches by these self-absorbed non-humans, just to push whatever point about modern living Mills and novelist Walter Kirn are trying to make. I hate to say it, but of all the movies released in the last couple of years that have really had an influence on the cinema, Zach Braff's Garden State has certainly spawned its share of imitators, which is just sad.