Anton Yelchin stars in the title role in "Charlie Bartlett". (AP Photo/Sidney Kimmel Entertainment, Ken Woroner)

Charlie Bartlett tries hard to be cool. He's been thrown out of every private school in the region for trying to make friends. Usually by coming up with some black-market entrepreneurial scheme like selling fake IDs. But it's high-quality stuff.

"I'm 17," complains the poor little rich kid, "and popularity is pretty darned important to me."

Things do not start off well on his first day in public school when Charlie (Anton Yelchin) wears a blazer and tie and carries an attache case. He gets beat up in the restroom by Murph (Tyler Hilton), a big guy with a metrosexual mohawk. Still, Charlie seems to spark some instant chemistry with Susan (Kat Dennings), an emo girl in the Drama Club who also happens to be the daughter of alcoholic Principal Gardner (Robert Downey Jr.).

Charlie's solution to his popularity problem is to offer a prescription plan with universal coverage. He gets psychoactive drugs from his various shrinks and doctors (Ritalin, Xanax, Zoloft) and sells them to his fellow students, which elevates him to the status of a demi-god among high-schoolers.

From students to administration, everybody begins to speak his entire name -- "Charlie Bartlett" -- with a mixture of admiration, awe and affection. Charlie, apparently understanding that drugs are most effective when combined with talk therapy, offers amateur psychoanalytic/confessional sessions in the boys' restroom stalls, for boys and girls alike.

Anton Yelchin is appealingly goofy, with the slight build and pale complexion of the teenage Macaulay Culkin and an '80s Kevin Bacon smile. His mom (Hope Davis) is a delightfully clueless and eccentric aristocrat who self-medicates with wine and pills. And Kat Dennings has the charm of an emo Ione Skye.

But, as you might expect, it's Robert Downey Jr. as her drunken pop and principal who effortlessly dominates every scene he's in. There's no avoiding the intent behind the meta-moment when he acknowledges that being zonked is a lot easier than dealing with your problems.

By Jim Emerson / Universal Press Syndicate