Culturally Irrelevant Part 3: ‘Thumbsucker’

January 26, 2010  
Filed under Uncategorized

The 2005 film “Thumbsucker” takes viewers on a riveting ride through all the worries, insecurities and near disasters of late adolescence. The film’s protagonist, Justin Cobb, has a problem: he is 17 years old and he still sucks his thumb. The problems of this crutch manifest themselves through failed relationships, prescription pill abuse and aggressive and conceited debate team debacles. While all of these issues, coupled with a ridiculously indie (yet very good) soundtrack, seem to be all the typical fanfare of a run of the mill independent film, “Thumbsucker” differentiates itself through its frank and often dark presentation of the torture that accompanies the doubt and inadequacies of youth. And in the end the message of the film, humorously delivered by Justin’s New Age orthodontist played by Keanu Reeves, is there can be no message and that the key to life is learning to live without the answers.

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