Call it The Geek's Progress or My Life As a Weenie: Based on the novel by Dan Wakefield and directed by MTV luminary Mark Pellington, this coming-of-age story set in mid-'50s Indianapolis hashes over the usual youthful miseries and
epiphanies. The difference: Hero Sonny Burns (Jeremy Davies) is absolutely the most pathetic, uncharismatic, pasty-faced drip imaginable. He's not just naive and confused -- he's a world-class drag, and the book's perversely amusing conceit is that small-town football hero, heartthrob and
all-around BMOC Gunner Casselman (Ben Affleck) mistakes Sonny's miserable self-abnegation and social ineptitude for brainy aloofness and mysterious depth of character. The unlikely duo become friends because Gunner, his knee-jerk, all-American values shaken by his Korean War experience,
misguidedly imagines that the clueless Sonny can show him the way to intellectual and spiritual enlightenment. The finer points of this relationship were, unfortunately, lost in the transition from page to screen, leaving a gaping hole at the story's center. Without the nuances, you can only
wonder why on earth Gunner and Sonny bother with one another -- or more to the point, why Gunner bothers with Sonny. The film looks great, as overheated '90s reimaginings of the fabulous '50s go, and Rose McGowan and Rachel Weisz breathe surprising life into their roles as glossy dream
girls, as sleek and sharp as '50s Cadillacs. But in the end, you can't help but feel been there, done that, kinda wish we hadn't. --Maitland McDonagh
