A high school comedy with brains

The movie smells like "Catcher in the Rye" and some of its loose offspring, like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," and, in particular, "Rushmore," especially after we find out the public-school principal (Robert Downey Jr.) is a self-loathing drunk who likes to wallow by his swimming pool the way Bill Murray did in "Rushmore." But Charlie isn't cynical or acutely arch. The movie seems allergic to phoniness. And Downey, who's shrewdly cast, hasn't e-mailed in his performance.

The racially variegated school Charlie has landed in is full of insecure and unhappy kids who feel better baring their souls to him in the stalls of the boys' bathroom. He sits in one stall and the "patient" parks in the adjacent one, undergoing therapy with the faux-anonymity of Catholic confession. Charlie fakes their symptoms for an assortment of shrinks who write him prescriptions, which he fills and resells for $10 at school. The surprise is that Charlie is actually a talented shrink. He asks questions that lead to actual answers. He listens.

In exchange for his psychiatric prowess, Charlie conquers the school, taming his chain-smoking, weed-dealing bully (Tyler Hilton), befriending the lovable slow kid (Dylan Taylor), and handing his virginity to Susan (Kat Dennings), the wonderful eyelinered drama girl who happens to be the principal's daughter. Director Jon Poll (a veteran film editor) and writer Gustin Nash, making their debuts, have whipped up the rare high school movie that doesn't see teenagers as jokes itching to be told or tragedies waiting to happen. It helps tremendously that every single young actor in this movie has a natural, unforced personality and a plain face you don't often see in Hollywood. They also seem as though they might have attended an actual high school.