The Way, Way Back (2013)

           It can be very difficult to be a teenager, especially with dysfunctional parents. Fourteen-year-old Duncan has to spend the summer with his mother (Toni Collette) and her boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell) at the latter's beach cottage. Duncan has good reasons to be sulky and silent. Trent's an overbearing jerk. Their neighbor is certifiably crazy but on message when she gloats that the place is a "summer camp for adults." Not funny! Duncan finds some solace with Susanna, who nonetheless finds him a mystery: "Do you want me to keep talking or are you going to say something?" Duncan finds his redemption with a crazy manager of a retro water park, who takes the awkward teenager under his summer care. Water Wizz, says Duncan, "is the only place I'm happy." It's not much, but that's what you get in a poignant coming-of-age film.