No way. Way.
Last year, when Nat Faxon and Jim Rash accepted the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay with Alexander Payner for The Descendants, a bunch of people watching the show said, “Wait, those guys?” Faxon is a dopey-faced blond who has appeared in countless TV sitcoms and B-movies, and bald and awkward Rash plays the hapless Dean Pelton in the cult NBC comedy Community. They weren’t just hammy bit actors, it seems; they could also write. Either that, or they were just edited by the great Payne. Now that their first feature, written and directed only by them, is out and it’s clear Faxon and Rash are not accidental Oscar winners. The Way, Way Back, a coming-of-age comedy set in a summer beach town and its local water park, is one of the best movies of the year: funny, moving, a crowd-pleasing anecdote to the bombastic action films dominating the theaters this summer. Continue…