Charlie Bartlett offers one of those rare showcase roles to Anton Yelchin. It’s not much of a movie, but it is an impressive calling card for the young star. Yelchin plays the title character, a Ferris Bueller type whose rich, disconnected family keeps a psychiatrist on call. Charlie quickly learns the rules of the child-psychology game and opens up shop counseling his fellow students in the boys’ bathroom. Thanks to the generous prescription habits of his own doctors, Charlie also keeps his “clients” well medicated. Yelchin has astonishing skills – he’s a consummate, comic entertainer who is also able to hit surprising notes of melancholy – even if, too often, he grabs the picture by the throat instead of letting it naturally come to him.
