THUMBSUCKER

(2005) dir. Mike Mills; 96min.

FRIDAY, November 5th at 7 & 9:30pm

SATURDAY, November 6th at 7 & 9:30pm

SUNDAY, November 7th at 3pm



Many of Justin Cobb's problems are of the kind you would expect to find bedeviling the teenage hero of a coming-of-age movie, especially one like Thumbsucker, which made its debut at the Sundance Film Festival. Justin, played by a slight, hollow-cheeked young actor named Lou Pucci, lives in a nondescript suburban house (in Beaverwood, Ore.), with his eccentric, wistful mother, Audrey (Tilda Swinton), his distant, disapproving dad, Jack (Vincent D'Onofrio), and a younger brother (Chase Offerle). The trait that distinguishes Justin from his numerous literary and cinematic peers is the one that gives this smart, quiet film, adapted from Walter Kirn's novel, its name. Justin's great shame — and also his great comfort — is that at age 16, he still sucks his thumb. Thumbsucker is a modest movie, but its refusal of large gestures and loud noises is a decided virtue. It manages to show how calamitous and out of control (and also how thrilling) growing up odd and ordinary can be, without wallowing in its hero's occasional self-pity or condescending to him. — A. O. Scott