Coasting on wave of angst and an emo soundtrack

Every scene, and nearly every moment, makes you wonder if Wiesen has talent. You wonder because there's scant evidence either pro or con on display. Wiesen's feature debut, shot in indistinct hand-held style going for documentary honesty but coming off as affectation, risks little in any direction. The writing is neat as a pin, structured to a robotic degree and full of on-the-nose dialogue.

"I'm obnoxious. I'm deeply disrespectful," George tells his mother (Rita Wilson) at one point. This is followed by her line, referring to her rat of a second husband: "We're getting a divorce." Such lines deliver information without character.

George loves Sally, played by Emma Roberts. They're made for each other, even though she's lived more than he has. A third character completes their uneasy triangle: Dustin, a painter in his early 20s, played by Michael Angarano (so good in David Gordon Green's "Snow Angels"). George's talent lies in drawing and painting; Dustin, an alum of the tony private school, serves as his mentor. The movie doesn't treat Dustin like a garden-variety antagonist, which is one of the things that saves it from pure fraudulence.

Originally titled "Homework," "The Art of Getting By" lays out each domestic, scholastic and sexual crisis in its carefully prescribed place. George's necessary course corrections are no less diagrammatic. The film chronicles the final few weeks of his senior year, in which he must make up scads of schoolwork, turn in a single painting and hack through his finals while making things right with Sally.

There are all sorts of smart, honest movies to be made about kids in this situation — stories that deal comically, dramatically, truthfully with how teenagers of similar ages exist on wildly different time-lines of experience. The glibness of Wiesen's freshman effort wouldn't be a problem if the wit was there. As is, the film barely gets by on the strength of its cast, and wholly in spite of the most blandly comforting emo-soundtrack in the histories of film and emotion.

mjphillips@tribune.com

MPAA rating: PG-13 (for thematic elements including sexual content, language, teen drinking and partying)

Cast: Freddie Highmore (George); Emma Roberts (Sally); Michael Angarano (Dustin); Blair Underwood (Martinson); Rita Wilson (Vivian); Sam Robards (Jack); Jarlath Conroy (Harris)

Credits: Written and directed by Gavin Wiesen; produced by P. Jennifer Dana, Gia Walsh, Kara Baker and Darren Goldberg. A Fox Searchlight Pictures release. Running time: 1:24