Forced quirkiness built around a flimsy gimmick, this independent feature follows an outrageously cultured 15-year-old (Aaron Stanford) who goes about wooing his
stepmother (Sigourney Weaver) by quoting Voltaire. While the precocious high-schooler of Wes Anderson’s Rushmore – this movie’s obvious model – existed in a carefully cultivated fairy-tale world, the hero here is all too literal, a hollow creation built on exaggerated mannerisms.
