Suck on this

The film, boiled down into one scene, would be emo-child Justin watching the front of a girl's t-shirt. He's supposed to be planning his debate rebuttal, but he can't stop looking at the "Club sandwiches, not seals" logo. \nJustin (Lou Pucci) is a 17-year-old, whose life is wracked with the tumult of being 17. Per the title, he still sucks his thumb, but the film isn't about his thumbsucking. It's about him being 17, and to Justin, that involves sucking his thumb. He loves an environmentally minded girl named Rebecca, his teachers want him self-medicated on Ritalin and his parents haven't really resigned themselves to the fact that they're old enough to have kids. His orthodontist (Keanu Reeves) helps him identify his power animal. No wonder the poor kid sucks his thumb.\nBut Ritalin turns him into an egomaniac, a little weed turns him into a wandering stoner and a little sex brings him full-circle, back to being a heartbroken teenager. Pucci plays it off naturally, but with a wonderful twitchiness that lets us know there's more below the surface. And as for the thumbsucking -- it feels like it should mean more, but to the director's credit, it's not overanalyzed. Thank goodness. It would've ruined the film.\n The movie itself is fantastic, plain and simple. It's well-acted, well-written and well-made. "Thumbsucker" is also the large-scale debut of both Pucci and director Mike Mills, both of whom will be forces to be reckoned with in the future. Tilda Swinton and Vincent D'Onofrio are wonderful as Justin's parents, but the true laugh-out-loud performance comes from Reeves. If Reeves was looking for redemption with his role as a New Age orthodontist, he's found it. \nThe DVD, also, stellar, features a very nice making-of documentary, a "conversation with the novelist and director" doc and a CD-ROM director's blog. The making-of doc, in particular, was nice, because while Swinton is great as Justin's mother, it's a quiet relief to hear her British accent as she discusses the film. Both documentaries are well-served by focusing on the book's author and the film's director, rather than the actors. \nAs a cultural artifact, the film is a major milestone -- if only because of what it doesn't say. The DVD makes the film a more full experience, which is exactly what a good DVD should do.