"The Education of Charlie Banks" is not as grim as suggested. It primarily takes place at college. A beautiful college with beautiful books and beautiful girls. The darkness is within the inner characteristics of most of the characters. Charlie Banks is expected to fight against injustice but it's much easier to ignore it.The film tries to take the stand that retaliating against malice or insolence with violence is wrong. I understand what they're saying but they seemed to get confused with which actions should be taken more seriously. What the film does get right is the characters and their internal and mutual contentions.We are presented to a world of privileged kids, semi-privileged kids and not privileged kids. They all attempt to be friends but there's an awful lot of differences to overcome for that to happen. Throughout the entire time, Charlie experiences paranoia, jealousy and self-assurance, three very conflicting emotions for somebody to be experiencing at once, but they are all clearly portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg. The real star however, is Jason Ritter as the charismatic, but rage-filled and troubled Mick."The Education of Charlie Banks" attaches some rather interesting thoughts to a mixture of typical college students. By keeping it real, they didn't know exactly what to do with those thoughts, I also could have used a bit more humour, but I was mostly quite impressed with my time spent with Charlie and those damn rich kids.

Others here have expressed that this Indie film was good and I agree. I think it could have been better. I also agree, the educational part was not about Charlie Banks, who seems very passive and self centered with many short rather flippant comments. He really doesn't rise very high on the intellectual ladder. However, I also felt as a privileged kid who had all his little ducks in a row, and egocentric as most of these people are, the film seemed to project a kind of real life situational social drama.What exactly Charlie learned? Well, I was mystified how a moocher could live and walk about an Ivy League campus without some security officer kicking him out. I suppose this does happen where friends allow for social reasons something like these triangles to happen. But, gosh uncle Elmer how did he eat and live in a dorm room that was rented for two legitimate male students.I suppose the moral crisis comes late in the story, and in fact, Charlie and his Mich buddy were not physically matched for fighting. I would have thought Charlie would have attempted to undermine Mich earlier in the film, rather than passively sulking and accepting this man's total illegitimacy as a college student.However all these picky concerns did not over all make me dislike the flick. I have known students like Charlie before and wondered if they actually had any moral compass other than their own egocentric interests in sex and pleasing their parents.I rated it above my standard 5 to a 7. The film is worth a look !

Fred Durst from some music group called 'Limp Bizkit' directed this & it is his first effort. For a first timer he did a first class job.Peter Eckoff wrote this screenplay about some college students in the 1970's at Brown Univ. in Rhode Island. The screenplay is quite intelligent & not the usual college days & nights stuff we usually see.However I felt that the ending was a letdown & to me it hurt MY overall enjoyment of this very well acted & made drama. There are many comic moments BUT this is primarily a drama.Jesse Eisenburg is Charlie & he is just first rate. Jason Ritter who has usually done lighter roles is just magnificent as a confused non conformist & bully. Chris Marquette is there buddy & has most of the funny lines.This is one trio I would like to see again.Eva Amurri is also first rate as a love interest.the entire cast are all first rate.This is another low budget film that only had a very short USA run in March 2009. & released to DVD 3 months later.This is a darn good film,I just did not care for the ending. See it, you may or may not agree with me on the ending, BUT I feel you all will like it. It also is a wee bit overlong.Ratings: *** (out of 4) 84 points (out of 100) IMDb 7 (out of 100)

I was genuinely surprised by Durst's directorial debut.The characters were rich and Jesse Eisenberg did a fabulous job of taking the lead as Charlie.The setting was nice and Durst seems to have gone into great detail in trying to capture the essence of college life in the 80's.Eisenberg ,definitely the star of the show , does a fabulous job getting across as Charlie.He is a wonderful actor and I am glad to see he is back to his "Indie" roots(Squid and the Whale was fabulous.Didn't know why he was associated with Cursed...).The screenplay could have been better but the storyline was not over- complicated and kept you captivated till the end.Durst seems to have a great touch at this which has surprised me but then again he never ceases to surprise us all.He seems to have his hand in everything these days.Kudos to Durst and hope to see him in the future with stronger actors and better budgets.