The Way, Way Back, review Coming-of-age stories, played out over one summer after which Nothing Was Ever The Same Again, feel like familiar terrain. The Way, Way Back is the second in this genre to be released in consecutive weeks, after The Kings of Summer. For all that, it feels warm, funny - and even fresh. It opens with a road trip, with Toni Collette and Steve Carell aboard (shades of the peerless Little Miss Sunshine there). She's single mother Pam, he's her arrogant boyfriend Trent; they take the front seats of his station wagon. Behind them is his teenage daughter, and banished to the rear - way, way back, as it were - is gloomy, taciturn 14-year-old Duncan (Liam James), Pam's son, who despises the overbearing Trent. They're heading for a vacation at a New England beach resort: what could go wrong? These include Allison Janney, splendid as Betty, a pushy, indiscreet divorcee who seems to be permanently sozzled. Much dark humour is derived from her young son's "lazy eye," her weary disdain for his condition and her crashingly insensitive demand that he wear an eye-patch at all times. But the major scene-stealer is Sam Rockwell, who plays Owen, the witty, fast-talking manager of the Water Wizz Water Park, where children and adolescents splash around, hurtle down huge slides and get wet all day. Owen's manner suggests a wannabe stand-up comic, but he has a camp counsellor's soul and a mentor's encouraging interest; he swiftly takes a shine to Duncan, brings him out of his shell, and gives him a menial job and finally a sense of belonging. Rockwell seizes on this role and milks it for all it's worth. There's a scene in which two boys have become stuck in a waterslide; he stands before the young crowd and announces gravely: "I need a hero." Straight-faced, he then continues with Bonnie Tyler's lyric: "I'm holding out for a hero till the end of the night." This is a class of deadpan that recalls Bill Murray, who played a similar role in Meatballs. There's much to like about The Way, Way Back. It's tough-minded enough to portray most of the adult vacationers as a grasping, bitchy bunch. And Faxon and Rash apply just enough edge and melancholy to the overall comic tone. Yet it's a little uneven - best regarded as a series of amusing character turns rather than a coherent whole. Finally, though, its low-key charm prevails.