Eli Bloom (Jesse Eisenberg) is a piano protégé being dragged into an audition to a fancy music school. Instead, his main concern is trying to push his mother Penny Bloom (Melissa Leo) into drug rehab. She constantly refuses to go while trying to score as they drive around with drug dealer Sprinkles (Tracy Morgan).

Tracy Morgan is completely miscasted. I keep thinking this is a joke but he's never funny. In fact, the whole movie is like that. Jesse and Melissa play very annoying characters. They almost never do things that they're suppose to do. It's so frustrating that any joke never comes off properly. This was suppose to be wacky especially with the revolutionary war re-enactors but I never laughed once. At the core of this, basically how are we supposed to laugh at people who are so self-defeating.

Social outcast and bad drinker Eli( Jesse Eisenberg) works as a stock boy but aspires to go to a prestigious arts college. His former teacher Dave (Neal Huff) has managed to arrange an audition for him. On the morning of the audition, Eli attempts to quickly straighten out a home life that has always teetered on disaster. His sister Nicole (Emma Rayne Lyle) talks to people through a foul mouthed sock puppet that needs to be laundered. His waitress mother (Melissa Leo) needs to go to rehab. However things don't go as planned.

Rehab won't accept Eli's mother Penny because her urine is currently clean and she doesn't have insurance. They suggest she do drugs to dirty up her urine. Eli aids and abets his mother on her quest. He runs into the likes of drug dealer "Sprinkles" (Tracy Morgan). At this point the comedy kicks into gear. Eli ends up as a translator between Sprinkles and his Spanish speaking connection.

The film has some comedy scenes, most notable when Tracy Morgan is involved, but for the most part it is a drama that involves people with some type of problem which can be argued that they center around Penny's addiction. It is not a dark comedy per se, the comedy is not about dark material.

Eli's attraction for Chloe (Sarah Ramos) didn't seem to be well developed. Tracy Morgan as a drug dealer and his sidekick Black (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) lacked credibility in those roles as they were comically written while the other characters were more serious. It is a feel good movie, but not one that will make you hold your side with laughter.

Parental Guide: F-bombs, no sex, no nudity.

This movie is so much like my life that I couldn't watch it with a detached manner. Eli Bloom is an outstanding high school prodigy that masters both Spanish and playing piano. He has to take care of his drug addict mother and sister that has anti-social tendencies, and tries to be admitted to a piano school at the same time. He speaks calmly and lovingly to his mother and sister, he seems to be the only one sane in the house. But Penny still tries in every way to ruin his life: refusing to go to the rehab, taking him to drug dealers, trying to check his hand while driving when knowing she can't get the car balanced, trespassing the auditorium while clapping and screaming like a lunatic......Penny is too heavy a burden for any healthy child.

Yet Eli did it. He stopped the drug dealer from killing or raping his mother(although they are not corrupted in the heart anyway),he got the second chance of audition, he sent his mother into rehab, Nicole ends up in a safe environment where she gets to keep Mario and fits into the child society gradually, and Eli wins Chloe's heart with a super romantic monologue. Eli blames no one, he waves off all the obstacles and torture with humor, and he sticks to his goal and dissolve the problems with courage and delicacy beyond his age. Eli has a special position in my ranking of all the film characters.

Sprinkles is a basketball star that was knocked to the bottom of society with a huge setback. Although he has to go back to his drug-dealer profession, I feel pain-stroked when I imagine the gap between his life as a drug dealer and one as a sport star. I have no idea how many nights he cries into sleep that cultivate his cruel and tough character, but I am sure that life owes him so much that the stolen trophy doesn't even start to compensate for it.