A bunch of skateboarders ride past Terri (Jacob Wysocki), an overweight teen standing glumly by the side of the road, and one genuinely compliments his comfort-driven fashion sense: “Nice pajamas, man.” Terri cracks a little smile. He still feels like an outcast, but at least he’s found someone who grants him fleeting acceptance. Even if the person praising his sartorial choices is himself an outsider as well. Moments like this abound in Azazel Jacobs’ Terri, keeping just to the realistic side of quirk, and finding moments of small revelation in subtle gestures.

Much like Azazel’s last film, the fantastic little-seen indie Momma’s Man, the director turns his camera on a dissatisfied character hitting a crisis point. Last time around, it was a thirty-something man regressing to his teen years on a visit back to his parents. This time, it’s a teen with no parents, forced to grow up too fast due to his caretaking responsibilities for his ailing uncle (The Office‘s Creed Bratton, who is quite touching in the role). He’s lost in a school where no one talks to him except to mock him, and where his teachers try to ignore the bullying, because they simply can’t be bothered with the hassle that would be required to actually give a damn.

So Terri begins showing up late, wearing his pajamas to school, and generally acting disinterested, which eventually lands him in the the office of principal Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly), a slightly unorthodox administrator who likes to yell at students just for the benefit of his elderly secretary, while acting chummy with them and calling them “dude” when not trying to put on a show.

This isn’t so much a coming of age story, as Terri doesn’t necessarily go through a massive transformation. He does make a couple of friends, parties for the first time and even manages some emotional intimacy with a girl. At the end, though, we don’t see a kid transformed, so much as one with the tools of transformation: namely the earth-shaking knowledge that “growing up” doesn’t mean “getting it together,” and that the adults are essentially just as full of it as the kids. They just know how to hide it better. When he starts recycling Fitzgerald’s motivational platitudes to a friend with problems of her own, he demonstrates a sudden understanding of why adults resort to these clichés, even though their impersonal nature annoys him when he realizes Fitzgerald is feeding all his counseling subjects the same lines.

Terri moves somewhat deliberately and episodically, though feels much more polished and accessible than the minimalist tack Jacobs took with his last film. He gives his characters the space to be as naturally funny, or sad, or broken as the scene requires, and the time to let those emotions play out. That party is really just a three-person drug and alcohol-fueled hangout that stretches out through much of the latter third of the film, with some amazingly and uncomfortably real-feeling moments.

Given this much leeway to explor their characters, Jacobs’ actors need to be on top of their game, and he gets excellent performances all around, particularly from his two leads. Reilly’s performance calls to mind the subtle and often sad comedy and emotional range of his work in Magnolia, reminding us that he’s capable of a lot more than most straight comedies ask of him. And Wysocki is phenomenal, uncomfortably inhabiting a body that, even more than that of most teens, never quite seems to fit. Neither stoops to the stereotypes of what could easily be a formulaic situation, the offbeat inspirational teacher and the student who just needs someone to believe in him.

Instead, they’re just two guys trying to muddle through life the best they can, and trying to do so without feeling so alone. That’s really all anyone in Terri is looking for, and even as it shows misfits of various types helping one anther get by, this isn’t so maudlin as to suggest an unconditionally happy ending. Life, unlike the movies, isn’t defined by happy and sad endings, but rather continual struggle and momentary resolutions. Jacobs has just given us a peek into these lives — it’s no accident that there’s a scene early in the film that we watch largely obscured through a door that’s just ajar. What’s next for them, and how they’ll deal isn’t something that we’ll know, and that’s actually a brave place for Jacobs to leave his characters.

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Terri
Directed by Azazel Jacobs
Written by Patrick Dewitt, from a story by Dewitt and Jacobs
Starring Jacob Wysocki, John C. Reilly, Olivia Crocicchia, Creed Bratton
Running time: 105 minutes
Rated R for sexual content, language, and some drug and alcohol use – all involving teens.
Opens today at The Avalon and Shirlington.