The Art of Getting By

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When people dismiss New York City and its denizens as pretentious, self-absorbed, hipster snobs who only pull their noses out of their own rear ends long enough to look down on Gotham outsiders, it's because of derivative movies like The Art of Getting By.

Freddie Highmore, so charming alongside Johnny Depp in Marc Forster's delightful Finding Neverland, wallows here as George, a fatalistic high-school teenager questioning the futility of existence. Unwilling to burst his own bubble of arrogance and fall in step with reality, George rebuffs his frazzled mother (Rita Wilson), resists the encouragement of his teachers (one of whom is played by a defrosted Alicia Silverstone), and trades condescending verbal jabs with a concerned principal (Blair Underwood) who is at the end of his rope with this gifted but jaded student.

George's miserable outlook on life marginally softens when he meets Sally (Emma Roberts), a fair-skinned beauty who wouldn't give a trenchcoat-sporting loner like George the time of day if not for Gavin Wiesen's misguided script and pandering direction. At the same time, George witnesses his potential future in Dustin (the great Michael Angarano), a successful painter and alum of George and Sally's school who mentors the former and romances the latter. Simply typing that sentence out makes me want to throw up, so you can imagine how I felt watching Wiesen's nauseatingly contrived subplot unfold.

It is interesting, at the very least, watching young actors like Highmore and Roberts find their niche. In time, and with better choices, Highmore could reach the level of Angarano, who showed promise in kid flicks like Sky High and parlayed those experiences into worthy roles inSnow Angels or on FOX's hit show 24.

As for Roberts, she needs to stop playing the superficial muse of the morose Manhattan teen, the type of seasoned ingénue who only exists on the pages of phony, disconnected, urban coming-of-age screenplays where kids skip school and catch Louis Malle retrospectives at the local art house theater. Between Art and the similarly detestable It's Kind of a Funny Story, this young actress is just getting by ... at best.