A teenager tackles the mysteries of life, love and public speaking in ROCKET SCIENCE, a wry comedy of adolescent angst by Jeffrey Blitz, director of the Academy Award-nominated documentary SPELLBOUND. Making his feature narrative debut, Blitz leaves behind the conventions and clichés of coming-of-age tales to instead conjure a world where everyone, regardless of age, is befuddled by desire and the longing for human connection. Mixing humor with a compassionate regard for his characters and their idiosyncrasies, Blitz creates a film about the little insights that can emerge from, and ultimately eclipse, the agonies and disappointments of youth.
Life is not easy for teenager Hal Hefner (Reece Daniel Thompson) of suburban Plainsboro, New Jersey. His parents, Juliet (Lisbeth Bartlett) and Doyle (Denis O'Hare), have abruptly split; his older brother, Earl (Vincent Piazza) is a budding obsessive-compulsive who pushes him around; and he has an unpredictable stutter that makes high school an exercise in embarrassment, self-effacement and terrible lunches. While Earl sets out to conquer the world through a combination of assiduous planning, an intimidating demeanor and habitual theft, Hal remains well in the background at Plainsboro High.
Given that his active mind and quick wit tend to be obscured by his problematic voice, Hal is not an obvious candidate for his school's high-powered debate team. So it comes as a complete, though not unwelcome, surprise when the team's star member, the hyper-articulate Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick), approaches Hal on the school bus one afternoon. The Plainsboro debaters need a replacement for Ginny's former partner, the brilliant Ben Wekselbaum (Nicholas D'Agosto), who dropped out of school following a calamitous performance at the New Jersey State High School Policy Debate Championships the previous spring. Ginny, who can compress an eight minute argument into ten seconds without breaking a sweat, dropping a word, or botching a barb, proceeds to present her case for Hal's potential as a public speaker. Her command of language is superb, her wit sharp, and her reasoning hard to fault. She has seen Hal, she has seen his promise. Hal is more than just shocked, or even dazed; he is smitten.
As the notion of debating takes hold in Hal's mind, so, too, do thoughts of the attractive and dazzlingly confident Ginny. Gambling that his voice will cooperate with the rest of him, Hal joins the Plainsboro High debate team as Ginny's partner. Trundling back and forth to her house with his ever-growing pile of research, Hal starts to see new possibilities in his life. Perhaps he can tame his balky voice and become a master of rhetoric. Perhaps he can succeed in love -- where so many, including his parents, have failed -- and win Ginny's heart.
The road ahead holds many twists, turns and bumps for Hal Hefner; despite his best efforts, people and circumstances prove more unpredictable than any stutter. But Hal rises to the occasion, and in doing so he scores a victory that has nothing to do with winning a debate - and everything to do with finding his voice.
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