Late in The Art Of Getting By, writer/director Gavin Weisen’s misanthropic but good-willed, kind-hearted protagonist, George (Freddie Highmore), is told by his high school art teacher that he needs to create a work of art that is “honest and fearless.” Fair enough. And for a good chunk of time The Art Of Getting By flirts with being honest and fearless in the nicest way possible. Until the last three-fourths when, for utterly unnecessary reasons, it morphs into dishonest and fearful, becoming so excruciatingly by-the-book there is even – ye gods – an inverted Run To The Airport. Why? Why are third acts such an issue anymore? Why did Weisen cop out? This is an indie flick meant for indie fans, not for people who couldn’t get a ticket to The Green Lantern and settled for this instead. Ugh.

George is a black coat cloaked, potentially talented artist at a private school with a sweet mom (Rita Wilson) re-married to a man (Sam Robards) with his own baggage who chooses to forgo homework for much the same reason Alvy Singer did in Annie Hall when Woody’s grade school alter ego discovered the universe is expanding and if it’s expanding then eventually it will break apart and that would be the end of everything and, thus, “What’s the point” to doing homework? George simply knows he’s going to die and if he’s going to die, why bother? Thus, he’s not on target to graduate, as fed-up but still genial Principal Martinson (Blair Underwood, super smooth as always) informs him while also informing him even if he’s going to die some day, he needs to get his act together now. George says he will. Will he?

Enter the obligatory love interest, Sally (Emma Roberts, whose ruby lips often charmingly seem at odds with her striking blonde locks). She and George Meet Cute when he bails her out of a potential disaster with a fellow teacher. She approaches him, talks to him, takes him home to meet her mom (Elizabeth Reaser), an Upper East Side version of Amy Poehler in Mean Girls, as they realize they have some common ground. If George doesn’t really become cool, he at least becomes accepted.

Here’s the most commendable thing about The Art Of Getting By: these people are nice. That seems simple, doesn’t it? It isn’t. No, no, no, they’re not Mayberry nice, they’re just believably nice. George could have been the trademark aloof drug-doing wannabe rebel who talks exclusively in pop culture zingers and Sally could have been the Bad Girl. Instead they are a boy and a girl with generally good hearts who just have some, you know, angst, and if you roll your eyes at the fact they have angst while conveniently forgetting that when you were a teenager you had angst since all teenagers have angst then talk to the hand cuz the face ain’t listening. I don’t mean to be harsh, honestly, but I grow weary of adult film critics overlooking their feelings from high school. Stop watching it like a jaded homeowner and let yourself go back to homeroom. You can do that, can’t you?

Even the slightly older artist (Michael Angarano) whom George sort of befriends and to whom Sally sort of becomes attracted isn’t the jackass you expect him to be. He’s a decent guy who’s trying to get George to stand up and take charge of his life. And for maybe an hour this movie seems very much to be taking an uncharted route through conventional territory. Could The Art Of Getting By get George to take control of his life without having to resort to forced theatricality? Could he not throw the shackles that have bound him to his sullenness for so long into the wind and just quietly slip the cuffs instead? Would it be so bold as to paint this friendship between George and Sally as just that – a friendship? A situation where, yes, George is attracted to Sally – because of course he is – but where the two of them remain friends who simply better each other, play important roles in one another’s lives in the here and now and then go their own ways?

I was rooting for this movie. God, was I rooting. And oh, was it a letdown. Principal Martinson tells George he can either be expelled or finish every piece of homework for the entire year in 3 weeks (!) and then maybe he will hear his name called at graduation because Martinson won’t tell him until the actual graduation ceremony whether or not he’s graduated which is a boneheaded, unbelievably phony dramatic device. And so we get George’s homework-doing montage which is basically every sports movie training montage and Sally starts making every decision the audience expects her to make and love is declared and hearts are broken and moping occurs and it comes down to flying away or running to your eternal flame. A charming emo flick goes the way of Nora Ephron.

Movies that fail to heed their own message are frustrating.

C-