Terri

Some movies take their time. They're confident, in a blithe sort of way. I'd picked this one up one time in the video store, but ended up watching something else. Super-8 I think. Last week we were in the store again and this one was in the for sale bin for $5. It was going to cost that much to rent it, so I bought it. Yesterday we watched it.

If you're looking for a "misfits and weird teachers in school" sort of movie, you might pick this one up. Being of that ilk myself, I was intrigued. I haven't seen "Bad Teacher" yet, but I'm skittish about movies whose titles tell me what they're going to be about. "Terri" was cryptic enough, indie enough, unassuming enough. Which is pretty much the way the movie unfolded.

Terri (Wysocki) lives without parents, together with an aging uncle that he often acts as parent for himself. Set in a mildly-in-decline-middle-American town Terri walks through a small wood to get to his high school. Overweight in a not entirely unhealthy sort of way, he wears pajamas to school and like beans on toast. At school vice principal Fitzgerald (O'Reilly) looks out for his sort. He sounds and looks creepy in a way, but you should try to keep those feelings at bey. He takes an interest in Terri and, despite each of them confronting the obvious problems of the imbalance in this relationship, it goes well. Which is what the film is about - unexpected answers to obvious questions.

Though the story centres on Terri's navigation of high school, it turns on his good deed for classmate Heather Miles (Olivia Crocicchia). About to be expelled for allowing Dirty Zach (yes, yes indeed) do something nasty to her in Home Ec class (there were witnesses, Terri was the first), Terri tells Fitzgerald that she hadn't wanted it - that she'd been coerced into it. A few days later, when Terri and Heather and scalp-picking weirdo Chad (Bridger Zadina) are in Terri's back shed indulging in expensive whisky and some of his uncle's medication, Chad asks her why she let Dirty Zach do what he did, in Home Ec. Heather's answer becomes the movie's ballast: "It feels good to be wanted."

If you're looking for an air-tight sense of moral direction, steer yourself through your own rough times by offering this gift to others. Fitzgerald verges on being too familiar, immature, and rash, but he understands this mighty truth, and he lives by it. The film ends with Terri seeing this above all, and reciprocating. It's all good, as the kids say. Don't just tolerate people, accept them and go out of your way to want them. A reasonable suggestion.