An awkward, self-conscious teen learns to embrace his individuality with the help of an unconventional mentor in “The Way, Way Back,” a humorous and heartwarming story of self-discovery from Academy Award winners Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (“The Descendants”).
The longtime writing partners make their feature-film directing debut with an original script packed with heartfelt wit and echoes of summer vacations past and present.
“The Way, Way Back” is the coming of age story of 14-year-old Duncan’s (Liam James) summer vacation with his mother, Pam (Toni Collette), her overbearing boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carell), and his daughter, Steph (Zoe Levin).
Having a rough time fitting in, the introverted Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen (Sam Rockwell), the gregarious manager of the Water Wizz Water Park. Through his funny, clandestine friendship with Owen, Duncan slowly opens up to and begins to finally find his place in the world, all during a summer he will never forget.
As Duncan, played by newcomer Liam James, sits in the far back seat of his mother’s boyfriend Trent’s station wagon on the way to a forced “family” vacation, the older man asks him how he’d rate himself on a scale of one to 10. The boy ventures a timid six, better than average. Trent informs him with brutal candor, that no, he’s a three. In the style that Jim Rash and Nat Faxon are known for, the scene balances precariously on the edge between comedy and pathos.
From a quintessential moment of teenage angst, Faxon and Rash have fashioned an original screenplay that captures the self-consciousness, uncertainty and hopefulness that make up adolescence. Their directorial debut, “The Way, Way Back,” tells Duncan’s story—that of an introverted 14-year-old facing a summer away from home and friends, dealing with a host of characters along the way.
“The first scene defines the dynamic between Duncan and the people surrounding him,” observes Faxon.
As the writing partners began to fill out the story of a young man trying to find his voice in a confusing new situation, they decided his journey should include a timeless venue of which they both have fond memories—an old fashioned water park, where their lead character finds sanctuary and independence during his transformative summer.
Faxon and Rash remember spending long days at water parks as kids, dropped off there by parents hoping to enjoy some vacation fun of a more adult variety. “Those were days of reckless abandon,” says Faxon. “The freedom was exhilarating. We saw the water park setting as an opportunity for lots of laughs that would marry well with the world of Duncan’s home life. It balanced the tone of the film.”
“Our writing was initially borne out of our frustration as actors not getting to play more interesting roles,” Faxon says. “Getting ‘Adopted’ made gave us the confidence that we could be successful at it.”
That confidence turned out to be well-justified. The pair, along with Alexander Payne, won an adapted screenplay Oscar for the 2011 film “The Descendants,” directed by Payne and starring George Clooney. The recognition that followed was what gave them the opportunity to direct “The Way, Way Back,” a script they began working on almost a decade earlier. The screenplay, which floated around Hollywood and attracted a lot of attention over the ensuing years, eventually wound up on the 2007 Black List, the fabled compendium of the best unproduced screenplays.
Following its appearance on the Black List, the project went through a series of promising false starts at various studios.
It was at that point that producer Kevin J. Walsh, a long-time fan of the pair’s work, came onboard. “About a year before “The Descendants” came out, Nat and Jim and I sat down and devised a plan to have them get it back and try to have them direct themselves,” recalls Walsh. “We decided to try and do it on a really low budget but to have them maintain total creative control. That was our goal from the onset, just to be able to make the exact movie they wanted.”
“The Way, Way Back” is distributed by 20th Century Fox through Warner Bros. and premiered exclusively at Ayala Malls Cinemas nationwide last Sept. 11.