Stockholm Film Festival

Hal Hefner, a stuttering American teenagerwith a mixed-up family, is the center of“Rocket Science”, Jeffrey Blitz’s eccentric andswift fictional feature debut and follow-up tocelebrated documentary “Spellbound”. QuietHal’s eloquent and megacompetitive classmateGinny asks him to join the school’s debate team.Smitten by her appearance – and the fact thatshe appears to see potential in him – he acceptsher invitation even though he is not entirely sureof why she is persuading a stuttering personinto debating. “Rocket Science” connectsa humiliating experience and the ability tomaster language, but is at the same time acomic, serious and unusual high school filmabout love and defying expectations. The viewson talking well are quite entertaining, not leastthe “spreading” technique, which pretty much amounts to sounding like an auctioneer. Thetransfer from nonfiction to fiction is just a matterof genres: “Rocket Science” contains the samelove for human peculiarities as “Spellbound”did.

Premiere Status

Swedish Premiere

Cast

Reece Daniel Thompson, Anna Kendrick, Nicholas D’Agosto

Producer

Effie Brown, Sean Welch

Script

Jeffrey Blitz

Cinematography

Jo Willems

Spoken language

English

 

Other films from the American Independents section

See all the festival films from 2007