An outsider and his mentor in 'Terri'

As a certain beleaguered, pop-cultural icon might have said, Good grief: Another movie about adolescent outsiders misbehaving on the margins? Yes, but in "Terri," writer-director Azazel Jacobs ("Momma's Man") uses our expectations against us -- or for us, actually, given the emotional catharsis and good feelings this ironic comedy imparts.

The titular heavyweight (Jacob Wysocki) is set up as a classic outsider. He's not particularly attractive, he's been abandoned by his parents and lives with an uncle (Creed Bratton), who lapses in and out of dementia. Just in case he wasn't a big enough target of potential teenage cruelty, he wears pajamas to school. Large pajamas.

His sartorial peculiarities bring him onto the radar of Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly), a well-meaning administrator who tries to mentor his school's more abberrative examples of youthful dysfunction, such as Chad (Bridger Zadina), a skinny vial of unspent rage who pulls his own hair out; or Heather (Olivia Crocicchia), a looker whose rep is in the Dumpster when a public display of affection goes bad.

But Terri comes to her rescue, claiming to Fitzgerald that he saw Heather being coerced, which leads the skeptical Fitzgerald to cut her a break, and Terri, Chad and Heather to form an unlikely alliance.

What's really sets "Terri" apart is its hero's self-possession. One of the conceits of angst-y adolescent fiction is the protagonist's need to belong, but Terri feels no such need. He's not an object of ridicule, and if someone does give him a problem, Terri shrugs him off; he has friends, and he has a sense of himself. What he also has is a sense of his life to come, which casts a melancholic pall on the more laughable aspects of "Terri," and gives it heft. As well handled as the film is, acting is a key to its success: Wysocki is a find, and Reilly, something of an acquired taste, gives one of his better performances.