A lot of high-school rebels have made their mark in film history — the adorable con artist Ferris Bueller, the malcontent Andy Clark, the stoner Jeff Spicoli, the delinquent Jim Stark, the egocentric Max Fischer — however, we’ve never met anyone quite like Charlie Bartlett.

Charlie Bartlett (Anton Yelchin) has been kicked out of every private school he’s ever attended. A plucky schemer, Charlie’s heart is always in the right place but his actions often run afoul of the law, much less school policy. Borrowing a page from the delightful Rushmore, Charlie’s indulgent but beleaguered mother (Hope Davis) decides to enroll her pampered son in public school.

At first, the privileged, clean-cut kid sporting the blue Latin-mottoed blazer and leather attaché case is an object of ridicule and even battery by the school bully (Tyler Hilton). What sets Charlie apart is how he responds. Unfazed by the abuse, Charlie is unrepentant in his overtures for friendship with the popular and the outcasts alike.

Uncomfortable with his own private life and not entirely sure where he fits in, Charlie turns to improving the lives of others. The entrepreneurial, if imprudent, Charlie becomes popular by genuinely caring for the welfare of his classmates. With Charlie, bathroom stalls function more like grimy confessionals. It isn’t long before he becomes something of a folk hero to the student body by dispensing straightforward advice and potent prescriptions proffered from the shrink his family keeps on call.

But Charlie’s biggest challenge comes when he falls in love with the beautiful and brash daughter (Kat Dennings) of the school’s increasingly disenchanted principle (Robert Downey, Jr.), a man struggling to hold body and soul together, much less the thousands of miscreants under his charge. Alas, Charlie’s subversive psychiatric practice cannot last, and as the powers that be close in all around him, Charlie will learn that the most important thing in life is not popularity, but how you use it. Sometimes it has to hurt before it gets better.

Quirky, provocative and insightful, the slightly overlong but thoroughly enjoyable Charlie Bartlett is a comic gem. The film, from first-time director Jon Poll and first-time writer Gustin Nash, is a smart, funny and poignant examination of loneliness, anxiety, hypocrisy and drug use that isn’t afraid to acknowledge that high schoolers have real problems too. But the filmmakers always maintain a comic touch, even when balancing on the knife’s edge of tragedy.

Downey is terrific as the rousing history teacher turned dictatorial bureaucrat turned alcoholic loose cannon who finds both his parental and his professional authority commandeered by a mere baby-faced child. There is a scene in the film in which Downey’s principal comes clean about a battle with substance abuse. It is as if Downey is confessing to his own checkered history and it makes the actor’s truly stellar comeback of recent years all the more sweet. Davis too is wonderful as a slightly off-bubble woman facing down her own emotional frailty.

But it is Anton Yelchin who is the incandescent cinematic revelation as Charlie Bartlett. Open-faced and bracingly sincere, Yelchin’s performance, without so much as a whiff of guile, is like a splash of icy water on a blisteringly hot day. He is the mountaintop guru trapped in the pimply skin of a teenager. Hilarious yet heartfelt, Yelchin’s Charlie is an eternal optimist, a flagrant and habitual truth-teller. Yelchin shines whether set apart as a leading man or camouflaged within a talented ensemble. Remember the name Anton Yelchin, because you will be hearing it a lot in the future.

© Copyright 2008 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.