Wil Wheaton Week: The Buddy System

Howdy all and welcome to Day 1 of Wil Wheaton Week and I have dug through the archives of both memory and IMDB to bring us Wil’s first major film role after the TV movie known as: Hambone and Hillie.  I recall viewing this particular movie of topic with my folks and thoroughly enjoyed it so yes like myself, it is also dated.  So grab some S’mores, toast them by a fire and take in this light hearted romantic comedy.  This is The Buddy System.

No I don't want candy or a ride ya perv.

Tim: I said he could follow me home and that you weren’t really seeing anybody and you know…spoiler

Precocious Tim Price (Wil Wheaton of Stand by Me, The Curse, Toy Soldiers, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Teen Titans, Legion of Superheroes, Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories and The Guild) doesn’t live in the best neighborhood, has a tendency to speak whatever is on his mind and lives in a single parent environment.  

His mother Emily (Susan Sarandon of The Front Page, Rocky Horror Picture Show, The Witches of Eastwick, Bull Durham, Thelma & Louise and The Client) is struggling to become a court reporter but manages to flunk her test every time due to nerves and frustration.  Forced to live with her mother (Jean Stapleton of Bells Are Ringing, Something Wild,  All in the Family, Archie Bunker’s Place, Lily Dale and Michael) who showers her boy with affection but somehow has forgotten her own daughter at times.  To keep her son in a great school they have lied on the address to where they live but Tim is lonely and can’t have friends over to visit or even play after school. 

So I am thinking a career in Sci-Fi...too obvious?

Joe (Richard Dreyfus of American Graffiti,  Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, Stakeout, The American President and Mr. Holland’s Opus) an aspiring Great American Novelist/ Inventor and the truant officer the school is hip to the big fib and catches Tim in the act of checking the mail.

Being a sly rascal (euphemism big pain in the tuckus) Tim thinks this is an opportune time to get his mother dating again since his father walked out on him given the guy she is on and off seeing is in Tim’s eyes a bit of a peckerhead. 

Joe is having his own dating hell as he and his self-obsessed girlfriend Carrie (Nancy Allen of Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out and Robocop) keep a steady diet of on and off relationship and strikes up a friendship with Tim and starts to feel genuine emotions for Emily but hang on kids because we need the cliché twist whether or not he should stick with the old girlfriend or pursue this new and amazing relationship with Emily and Tim.

Well at least I am not starring in a film with a Sheen. Phew!

I have just a few side notes about the film itself.  The director Glenn Jordan (The Promise, The Typists, Particular Men, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Echoes of Darkness, Barbarians at the Gate, Jake’s Women and A Streetcar Named Desire) is known primarily for doing dramatic and heart wrenching TV movies and while foul mouthed Wil was a bit of a shocker for the audience it was also true to life that an eleven year old boy would swear up a storm. The timing and reaction between Dreyfus and Sarandon felt like a couple with all the ups and downs. You can really believe what you see on the screen and Wheaton’s performance just steals the movie.  I feel the comparison to the Good Bye Girl and The Buddy System is a bit unfair but I cannot speak for all viewers.