The Art of Getting By

Gavin Wiesen finished this script in 2006, found a producer in 2008 and needed another year to close the money; the shoot happened only in spring 2010, in New York. The story comes out of his own childhood, growing up in the city and summering in East Hampton. It premiered at Sundance in January 2011 as Homework, in the US dramatic competition. Fox Searchlight bought it and renamed it The Art of Getting By, so the first title pointed straight at the coursework the hero will not do. Critics were rough on the writing while setting Freddie Highmore and Emma Roberts apart from it. Against a 4 million dollar budget the worldwide gross stopped at 2 million. Licensed songs do much of the atmospheric work; The Shins, Pavement, Mates of State and Leonard Cohen’s Winter Lady are among them, with cues such as Alec Puro’s Sally’s Theme set between. The BBFC gave it a 12A for moderate sex references and one use of strong language, noting mild violence when a teenager fights his stepfather. A good fit if a teenager coming apart through a stack of unsubmitted assignments, rather than one crisis scene, is engine enough for you. Not for anyone waiting on plot; most of the friction arrives in meetings with the school and in things nobody says.