REVIEW: Terri Is More Than Just Another Fat-Kid Movie

Movies about misfit fat kids are a tough sell. The surprise of Azazel Jacobs' Terri is that it sets up all the usual traps of the genre and then sidesteps them neatly. This is a modest film that doesn't reach too high, instead spreading out in some interesting ways, exploring what it means to be a reasonably emotionally secure person when everyone around you is busy projecting their own insecurity onto you.

The movie's title character, a young high-schooler in a small town played by Jacob Wysocki, may be slightly insecure: What teenager isn't? But he's not the depressive loser that the people around him, from his uncle and guardian James (Creed Bratton, of The Office) to the vice-principal of his school, Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly), assume he is. Uncle James has some sort of serious, undefined health problem that makes it difficult for him to get through an average day. Terri, whose own parents are nowhere on the scene, lives with and looks after him -- the duo's repertoire of meals appears to consist of steak and beans on toast. James comes up with plenty of chores for Terri to do, including setting traps for the mice who've taken up residence in the attic of the cluttered, somewhat run-down cabin where the two live. Yet he feels compelled to remind Terri repeatedly how easy he has it. "You live a prince's life, you know that," he tells the kid, who responds with barely a blink.

Terri does live something of a prince's life, but only because of his innate princeliness. He has a thing for wearing pajamas to school: It's a tic that's never explained, and you do wonder why he doesn't make the extra effort to don real clothes -- he's not so big, particularly in a country where obesity is such a problem, that he couldn't find clothes that would actually fit him. The idea is that he just feels comfortable in PJs, so why not wear them all the time? His oddness in that respect -- and the fact that he's teased mercilessly by his oafish classmates -- attracts the attention of Mr. Fitzgerald, who sets up a regular weekly appointment with Terri in order to help him with his unspecified problems.

Terri does have problems -- there's a small episode of mouse abuse, which Terri himself can't explain. But Jacobs -- who previously directed the 2008 comedy Momma's Man -- isn't about to go all John Steinbeck on us. Terri -- which was written by Patrick deWitt, from a story by deWitt and Jacobs -- has a great deal of warmth and a sense of humor about its characters and itself. Jacobs missteps here and there: He uses far too much sensitive piano music, and it's unclear what dramatic purpose all that plaintive tinkling is supposed to serve. The picture also meanders needlessly -- there are long stretches where we're left to ponder both the specifics of Terri's somewhat eccentric life and his ability to cope with its challenges, and those sections of the movie just seem quirky for quirkiness' sake.

But Wysocki keeps the movie grounded well enough. He plays Terri as guarded, to the point that he's often opaque. His eyes don't always tell us what he's thinking; still, they do make it clear that he's continually processing everything around him. Terri isn't just a preoccupied citizen of his own teenage body; he's already, in his tentative, cautious way, a citizen of the world. Wysocki's scenes with Reilly underscore the symbiosis that blossoms, timidly, between the two characters. Reilly's Mr. Fitzgerald keeps trying to reassure Terri, telling him that he used to be an odd kid himself, not realizing that Terri doesn't feel all that odd. And things really get interesting when one of the prettiest and coolest girls in Terri's class -- a precocious loner named Heather, played by the intriguing Olivia Crocicchia -- takes an interest in him.

Heather is what the cruel kids would call "fast": She's been caught letting another student finger her during school hours. But Heather is confident in her own way. She may be seeking sexual love for all the wrong reasons right now, but that doesn't mean her reasons aren't immediately and recognizably human. Her impulsiveness contrasts starkly with Terri's level-headedness, but the two still find a tender meeting ground in a scene where they, along with another, truly weird kid (a twitchy smart-ass played by Bridger Zadina), engage in an evening of liquor, pills, and almost-debauchery.

The scene doesn't become the disaster you fear; it ends with a curlicue of sweetness that's not too sugary. And it's a mark of Jacobs' respect for his characters and for his story that he doesn't need to turn the whole thing into a cautionary tale. Terri is less about overcoming teenage insecurity than it is about nurturing whatever self-confidence is already there. That's a subtle distinction that's hard to put into words, which is why people who know what they're doing make movies in the first place: To let actors show us.