Angry at his absent father and alcoholic mother, the hero of CHARLIE BARTLETT looks for ways to act out. When he's expelled from yet another prep school for forging IDs, Charlie (
Anton Yelchin) lands at a public school, where he becomes popular when he starts dispensing advice and drugs to his classmates, repurposing the medications (Ritalin, Xanax, Prozac) prescribed by his own doctor and listening to fretful teens in the faux confessionals of the boys' room stalls. While Charlie feels increasingly comfortable with school bully Murphey (
Tyler Hilton) and his most enthusiastic "client," the depressed Kip (Mark Rendall), it's clear that he'll eventually need to come to terms with his choices. He gets precious little help from his mother, Marilyn (
Hope Davis), and so seeks instruction and solace elsewhere -- namely, his new principal, the lonely, approval-seeking Mr. Gardner (
Robert Downey Jr.), and his beautiful, rebel-ready daughter, Susan (Kat Dennings).