No sugarcoating, suckers! We give you the cold, hard truth: You live in the center of the universe, and nothing is happening today! So pony up for the oversize bag of Twizzlers and a line of tourists at the movie theater, where Sundance Audience Award winner The Wackness opens, starring Olivia Thirlby of Juno, oddity Mary-Kate Olsen, and the great Sir Ben Kingsley as a shrink, all navigating the vaporous, early Giuliani-era waters of New York in 1994. Why does this movie sound like it’s going to obnoxiously demand a lot of very specific reactions from us, that there will be “right” and “wrong” responses and that we’re going to have to listen to self-styled cinéastes yammer about it on Smith Street for weeks?

[The Wackness, www.fandango.com]

mbryan@observer.com