The Way, Way Back (2013 Nat Faxon & Jim Rash)

Liam James is the unhappy son of feckless mother Toni Collette, forced to endure a seaside summer with her new boyfriend Steve Carrell (rather good in unsympathetic role) and daughter Zoe Levin. Luckily next door neighbours are Allison Janney, AnnaSophia Robb and River Alexander (who greets his mother after being out all night with "We'll talk when I wake up") and things considerably improve when he is befriended by immature fun park worker Sam Rockwell (Lawn Dogs, The Assassination of Jesse James...) - who delivers an inspired line in nonsense - and girlfriend Maya Rudolph. Amanda Peet and Rob Corddy are distracting friends of Carrell (scenes between these four and the exclusion of the boy are realistically done).

I'm now officially a big fan of Faxon and Rash, who showed in The Descendants a canny insight into family behaviour and the subtlety of relationships (note the somewhat equivocal behaviour of Janney to her children), and do it again here, only with more humour. TV actors, they both appear (as respectively Water Wizz's Roddy and Lewis) and their only writing credit prior to the Clooney film is the 2005 TV movie Adopted with Christine Baranski, sadly not available.

The two have picked an experienced cameraman in John Bailey (American Gigolo, As Good as it Gets, Groundhog Day). Looking forward greatly to their next film.