The Art Of Getting By

You know you're getting older when the cute little poppet from Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and Finding Neverland is all grown up and playing an annoying teenager. Highmore – for it is he, now more lanky than adorable – stars as George, a New York kid in his senior year of high school who has managed to coast through his academic years without doing any work whatsoever because he believes it's all pointless. It's looking likely he may fail to graduate from his posh school, and to complicate things further he's also distracted by his stepfather's odd behaviour, and the attentions of pretty but precocious schoolmate Sally (Roberts, incredibly irritating). 

The first film from director Gavin Wiesen, this is one of those movies in which just about everyone is moaning about the pain they're in but none of them do the obvious thing to stop it. Highmore does his best with the role of an unlikeable guy who really needs a kick up the butt, and there is nice support from Rita Wilson as his mum and Sky High's Michael Angarano as a young artist who becomes George's mentor of sorts, but in the end they can't overcome the clichéd script and obvious plotting. Rent a good coming-of-age movie like October Sky instead.