On the surface, freshman filmmaker Arie Posin’s debut feature “The Chumscrubber” is just another in a long line of teen suburban alienation flicks. But that’s not all it is, the movie also an acidic melodrama of adult pessimistic isolation. These two dissimilar worlds cannot help but smash into one another, the collision happening with the speed and furry of an ironically funny atom bomb laced with whimsy and archaic disillusion.

This bomb comes in the form of one Troy Johnson (Josh Janowicz), a teenager, model student, aspiring rock star and resident pharmaceutical drug dealer, who has just happened to hang himself. Dean Stiffle (Jamie Bell) finds the body amidst the stilted manufactured chaos of one of Mrs. Johnson’s (Glenn Close, giving her second brilliant supporting performance in as many films) blandly bourgeois garden parties. He’s so shook up to find his friend hanging in the quiet of his bedroom Dean weaves back through the party like a ghostly apparition, not telling anyone of his morbid discovery.

His dad, best-selling author and psychotherapist Dr. Bill Stiffle (William Fichtner), isn’t sure what to make of his son’s apparent detachment towards the death of his best – only, really – friend. What he is sure of is that trying to find out will lead to another best-selling book, so what if it embarrasses Dean in the process. Mom (Allison Janney) could care less about any of that. She’d just rather see Dean get out of the house and make some new friends, and it looks like she’s going to get her wish when Billy (Justin Chatwin), Crystal (Camilla Belle) and Lee (Lou Taylor Pucci) pay a visit.

What no one knows, however, is that these three are only after Troy’s remaining drugs, not Dean’s friendship, apparently kidnapping his little brother Charlie (Rory Culkin) to hold for ransom in exchange for the pills. Only problem, the kids have inadvertently kidnapped the wrong Charlie (Thomas Curtis). He’s the son of Sheriff Bratley (John Heard) and celebrated designer Terri (Rita Wilson), divorcees trying to go their separate ways. In fact, Terri is currently obsessed with planning her new marriage to town mayor Michael Ebbs (Ralph Fiennes), so obsessed in fact she doesn’t even notice her son is missing or that her husband-to-be is going a little crazy.

Behind it all is The Chumscrubber, a headless post apocalyptic warrior battling the undead in an absurdly popular video game that’s become a pop cultural icon for Hillside’s youth. He’s everywhere, Chumscrubber’s likeness on billboards, t-shirts, cereal boxes, posters and more. The things is, the older folks in town don’t even notice he’s even there, trying so hard to be textbook trustworthy adults they completely forget to be parents, failing to monitor their offspring’s self-destructive activities. All that, and I haven’t even mentioned the dolphins. Just wait until you see what gets done with them.

Parallel worlds collide in “The Chumscrubber,” and they are the same worlds that have crisscrossed through other teen alienation pictures as diverse as “Rebel without a Cause,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “Ghost World.” Adults tend to think they’ve found paradise in suburbia, a clean, happy and calm wonderland where their kids can grow up in relative tranquility. But those children tend to see things differently. Their view is one of an overrated artificial netherworld devoid of life and character, much of its power coming, not from tranquility, but by its ability to suck the life force out of even the most individualistic person.

It’s a tricky road, and goodness knows Posin and screenwriter Zac Stanford hit their share of speed bumps, but somehow these two still manage to craft one of the more singularly original breathlessly entertaining pictures I’ve seen this summer. It is a startlingly alive comedy full of complexity and charm, brazenly speaking in forcefully different tones depending on the age and perspective of the person watching it. At the center is a young adult desperately trying to connect to feelings he’s not even sure he should express, so uncertain of which step is the right one saying goodbye ends up being the most difficult test of them all.

It is interesting that in the production notes Posin claims Luis Buñel and Billy Wilder as two of his favorite filmmakers. As I watched things unfold in Hillside’s Spielberg-meets-Burton suburban utopia, I couldn’t help but think of both “The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie” and “The Apartment,” two stylized and wildly dissimilar absurdist comedies that have very little in common with Stanford’s central storyline. But the feel is eerily similar, Posin walking a tightrope of human disenchantment and benign indifference mixed with the heart of a star-crossed lover desperately looking to rebound.

It’s an odd combination, but with actors this good and direction so self-assured it works the majority of the time. And is that cast exemplary! You can’t tell me having Quentin Tarantino’s longtime producer Lawrence Bender and frequent Steven Spielberg collaborator Bonnie Curtis onboard didn’t help, the filmmakers assembling a virtual who’s-who the likes of which is usually unheard of. Each turns in fine, wonderfully nuanced work, Fiennes, Close and “Matrix” babe Carrie-Anne Moss the film’s standouts.

But it isn’t just the adults who shimmer. Both Chatwin and Pucci find just the right balance to their complicated kidnappers, whereas Belle transitions beautifully between being a slinky ingénue and conflicted pussycat wondering what would happen if she ever had the courage to do the right thing. It is the other Bell, former “Billy Elliot” wunderkind Jamie, who truly leaps off the screen, though. This is one of the finest, most delicately heartfelt depictions of mordantly wounded teen alienation I’ve had the pleasure to see since Thora Birch tore things up in “Ghost World.” The kid is spectacular, slowly building his performance to the ultimate breaking point, finally sharing a scene with Close so astonishing it should be required viewing by each and every aspiring actor out there.

It’s not all wine and roses. It takes time for Posin and Stanford’s film to find its bearings, the first few scenes a tightly focused menagerie of disconnect that didn’t quite work for me. I’m also not too sure I bought many of the events leading up to the climax, certain characters’ sudden change of hearts not entirely earned. Granted, that climax does end up being a stunner, so maybe my reservations about getting there might not mean all the much. Finally, while The Chumscrubber is certainly an interesting creation, I just don’t accept he’d become such a teen phenomenon, the whole concept behind his video game too simplistically juvenile in this day and age of “Halo” and the latest “Resident Evil” to really hold water.

Still, for a debut “The Chumscrubber” certainly knocks the socks off. Funny and moving, painful and jovial, Posin and Stanford show such promise I almost don’t know where to begin. Maybe with this: even with reservations I loved this movie. It made me laugh, it made me cry and, by the end, it left me moved. Those sentiments may be cliché, but the movie certainly isn’t, and watching it all come together so wonderfully is definitely a thing to lose a head or two over.

Film Rating: êêê  (out of 4)