Poor Justin -- seventeen years old and still sucking his thumb. He’s tried lots of things, but he just can’t stop. His father is frustrated that Justin still sucks his thumb, but then he’s somewhat frustrated with his life as well. His mother tries to be supportive in general, but she wants something more in her life, something fun. His younger brother is embarrassed by Justin’s overall weirdness.
It’s embarrassing for Justin as well. He goes into a stall in the school restroom to have a bit of privacy to suck. When his potential girlfriend wants to know about something written on his thumb that is meant to discourage him from sucking it, he would rather tell her it stands for an obscenity than to tell her why it’s there.
Finally his New Age touchy-feely orthodontist hypnotizes him and makes the experience of thumb sucking unpleasant. He stops, but now how can he find any comfort from the stresses of life? Soon he’s diagnosed as having ADHD and put on Ritalin. He becomes more focused, more confident and begins to show signs of great promise. He quickly rises to the top of the debate team at school. But soon that too grows out of control and he stops his meds to turn to pot and sex instead.
He is always going from one thing to the next hoping to find what it is that will make him normal. But perhaps he already is normal – just a bit flawed like everyone else.
Although Justin is the focal point of the film, we see that everyone around him has their own flaws that they try to cover up as best they can, just as he has tried to cover up his thumb sucking. As a patient as the drug rehab facility his mother works at put it, “everybody’s addicted to something.” For many that addiction may be socially acceptable, even encouraged – something that we see as good character such as seeking success. But for many of us it is something we just have to have to feel a little better. It may or may not be harmful. Maybe it’s just embarrassing. But it is there, hidden from the world, maybe even from ourselves.
The point of the film is that many of these flaws that we perceive as making us abnormal really are what make us normal – what make us individual – what make us human. Medically, there is nothing wrong with Justin sucking his thumb. It may mess up his teeth, but is it any worse than finding “normal” in stimulants or other drugs or other thrills?
This is the kind of film that in many ways is hard to categorize. It has some good humor, but overall, the tone is heavily morose. It’s not as though Justin (or anyone) finds any liberation from their fears and stresses. They just continue on with their struggles. A brief glimmer of hope at the end really isn’t enough to bring much light to the gloom.
Is Justin really that weird? He is certainly at a time of life that many find awkward. He has difficulty with coping with the stresses of everyday life. But we all have ways we try to deal with those stresses. Many of us have fears that we don’t want uncovered. Perhaps it is more normal to have a bit of weirdness than not to have it. It is when we discover that we can be loved in spite of our flaws – maybe even because of our flaws – that we are able to move on to live more fully.
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