Rocket Science

Rocket Science is an independent film that premiered at Sundance in 2007. It focuses on the coming-of-age of Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson), a high school student, who is fighting to prove his intelligence and have his voice heard. Hal's biggest issue is his relentless stutter. Although he is in reality, very intelligent, Hal cannot seem to convey this through speech, due to his impediment. Everything suddenly changes however, the day Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick) sits down next to him on the bus. Ginny, an extremely well spoken senior with high career pursuits, and also happens to be the captain of the high school’s debate team. She notices Hal’s struggles and tells him that she can transform his speech through debating. Hal takes her word for it, and they become partners on the team. However, with each meeting, Hal's debating skills do not seem to be improving, though his love for Ginny is growing. Hal begins to hit a very low point in his life. He continues to visit Ginny's house everyday, to attempt to profess his love for her, but she does not get the hint, and eventually starts dating a boy who is on a rival debate team. Hal learns that he will not be able to see Ginny anymore, but still decides to go through with the debate, though gets nervous at the last minute and loses composure. He does not continue with the debate team after that, since all his hope has been shattered. At the end of the movie, we see Hal wander into a pizzeria and finally order pizza- something he had never been able to do before.

 Overall, I enjoyed this movie. It was a sweet story about trying to overcome hardships, while still maintaining to be realistic, in the sense that Hal was not able to overcome his speech impediment fully, but his hard work made him realize that it was something that he could improve over time. The one thing I was not satisfied with however was the ending. I feel like it kind of lacked closure. We never really found out if Ginny and Hal made up with each other, and though we see that Hal is able to do something that he was never able to do before, it still seemed very unsatisfyingly open ended.