It's 1994 in New York City, Guiliani has just begun his first term as
Mayor, and Luke Shapiro, a drug dealer graduating from high school, finds a
friend in an unlikely place, his Psychiatrist.  "The Wackness" stars
Sir Ben Kingsley and former Nickelodean child star Josh Peck

SONY PICTURES CLASSICS -
 Independent film "The Wackness," starring Sir Ben Kingsley
and up-and-comer 
     "I think we could simply, perhaps say, 'Once upon a time, there
was a prince who needed to become a king.  He found a mad wizard to help him,
but the mad wizard was getting madder and madder every day, so the prince
decided to take the wizard with him on his journey.  The wizard stopped going
mad, the prince became the king."
     "I think it's something that's always been an aspect of my
personality, and the city itself is like a living, breathing thing, and it's
got a pulse, and it's the backdrop of this movie for good reason, because I
think it is such a template for the way a lot of us kind of grew up in the
city, so I thought that it was so important that I infuse that," says
actor Josh Peck
     "Well, at the time the Guiliani regime is the big thing that
everyone is talking about, and allegorically I think the Sir Ben character
says to Josh do you want your life to be like this city, do you want your
brain to be like this city, do you want to sweep everything away, the same way
Guiliani is dealing with the homeless problem by putting the homeless people
in jail, so I think it it's kind of emblematic of their dilemma.  How do you
deal with this, how do you clean something up, or do you just accept the fact
that it's always going to be dirty and then kind of deal with it in your own
way," says "The Wackness" director Jonathan Levine.   
     "Certainly in this film, one of the points, I think, is being
made is your drug of choice is your drug of choice, one happens to be illegal,
but that doesn't mean that it's worse, in fact, in a lot of ways, maybe weed
is better than lithium, valium, all those things that you see in his medicine
cabinet, and I think it's a very realistic look at how drugs can be part of
someone's life but not be someone's life," says actress Olivia
Thirlby.
     "That whole era though, the music, the hip hop music, I like to
say it was at it's best.  You know, it was more grounded, more lyricism, the
music was dope, what could you do?  The beats were on point, what are you
gonna do?  I'm glad I was a part of that, real talk, I'm glad I was a big part
of that," says Rapper and actor Mehod Man.
     "The Wackness"