I have to admit I was a long time getting around to watching "Thumbsucker." I am pretty sick of stories about bright adolescents growing up in dysfunctional families. Such films are generally written and directed by the same person, and they tend to overdo the dysfunction and eccentricity of the family members.

I think it stems from lack of confidence. Writers don’t seem to have much confidence in their own stories any more. Instead of an accurate report on a family or group of friends, they try to front load our interest by resorting to grotesque, unrecognizable parodies of their parents and the other people they grew up with. (The same lack of confidence in our own intrinsic interest leads movie makers to tell stories about famous, real people, historical or contemporary, instead of grappling with the truth of fiction.)

"Thumbsucker," written and directed by newcomer Mike Mills, shows some of these characteristics-as well as the dead giveaway of making all the music too loud and pouring it into every scene like ketchup. (I also found the music itself off-putting: there is only so much children’s chorus I can take, especially when it is patently being used for ironic purposes.) Yet the sharp, intelligent dialogue, and the wonderful
performances-not only Lou Taylor Pucci as the protagonist Justin Cobb, who, at 17, still sucks his thumb and can’t seem to answer any question directly, but also Vincent D’Onofrio and Tilda Swinton as his parents, Keanu Reeves as his orthodontist, and Vince Vaughn as his debate coach-kept me watching and listening to the end.

"Thumbsucker" is, I think, an attempted parable, but I am not sure of the exact lesson Mills wants to teach. Everything that is tried on Justin-discipline, hypnosis, Ritalin, etc.-works for a little while. Then it gets weird. Perhaps the message is that Justin’s cure is in himself, in accepting himself for what he is, a brilliant, confused thumbsucker.

That sounds like a cliché, and it may be that Mills’s main talent is in persuading all these great actors to be in his film, validating his abstract concepts with their flesh. Certainly I have never seen Swinton or D’Onofrio when they were not completely mesmerizing. The movie is worth seeing for its many sparkling moments. If they never add up to anything, well, I guess that’s too bad. Rated R.

COURTESY PHOTO