Critics reviews

The interplay between light and shadow during the film’s climax, an awkwardly Dionysian toolshed romp, alludes to the territory Jacobs is most interested in staking out and to the question he seems most concerned with posing: how do we arrive at an understanding of the socially alienated, especially those who have alienated themselves? That Terri is content to ask without answering is its most commendable aspect.

As shown in his last feature, Momma’s Man, Jacobs has an affinity for stories about young men searching for their identities. Terri never finds any big answers – and it’s not even clear that he knows what the questions are – but watching him do the best he can becomes a languid study in teenage perseverance.

The term presupposes that coming of age is a good thing, and for people still grinding through adolescence it must seem smug and dismissive, yet another irksome admonition to put away childish things. Terri, the eccentric fourth feature of New York independent Azazel Jacobs, will almost certainly endure this lazy critical shorthand, yet no one checking it out ... should expect Dead Poets Society.

The actor Jacob Wysocki is unknown to me, but he brings such quiet confidence to the role that he creates absolute conviction. A newcomer, he goes one on one with the masterful John C. Reilly in scenes of actual communication between two people rarely seen in any movie.

Jacobs is less assured with actors; the performances in Terri are all good, but they lurch from mumbly to excited without much between. Still, deWitt’s script is much better than anything Jacobs has worked on before, with a story that gets richer as it goes...

What makes “Terri” special, though, is that you don’t feel pushed around by the narrative. Mr. Jacobs paces his scenes with a relaxed, almost dreamy rhythm and allows odd, interesting details to catch his ear and eye. A pushier, less confident filmmaker would have underlined the quirkiness of the characters, condescending to them with mockery, sentimentality or a coy blend of the two. But everyone in “Terri” is allowed to be opaque and unpredictable, the way real people are.

Jacobs shouldn’t be expected to making films as surprising and unguarded as Momma’s Man for the length of his career, but for all of his sophomore effort’s decency, one hopes for less hewing to a template and more idiosyncrasy from his next work.

Azazel Jacobs (The GoodTimesKid, Momma’s Man) has created a beautifully subtle and wholly original take on the high-school-set coming-of-age film. While the slow-building delicate approach may alienate mainstream audiences expecting the old conventions of the genre, the film ultimately pays deeply affecting dividends in its final stretch.

Jacobs, working from a script by Patrick de Witt, takes a conventional coming-of-age story and does it proud, enlivening the plot with an almost experimental portrait of alienation and despair.