In the spirit of Full of It's less-than-original theme that "honesty is the best policy," allow me to be blunt: This high-concept, low-rent teen flick is an utterly negligible and charm-deprived fantasy comedy that should have gone straight to DVD, if not straight onto the cutting room floor. So generic that you practically forget it well before the end credits roll, director Christian Charles' follow-up to the documentary Comedian (2002) basically turns that Eighties-era John Hughes relic Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) into a wish-fulfillment narrative gone wrong—very wrong, in terms of Charles' rote direction of the dull, nearly wit-free screenplay by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore.
Looking more like a junior high student on the cusp of puberty than a high school senior, diminutive, baby-faced Ryan Pinkston is aptly cast as nerd math whiz/bully magnet Sam Leonard, whose first day at Brideport High is a disaster.

Despairing of ever fitting in with the cool crowd, Sam mistakenly asks the school's cynical, burned-out guidance counselor (Craig Kilborn) for advice. Told to lie about everything—his past, his parents (Cynthia Stevenson and John Carroll Lynch), and his nonexistent love life—Sam goes overboard, cooking up one whopper after another, much to the chagrin of his one friend, brainy outcast Annie (Kate Mara). Then, in a high-concept screenwriting 101 twist, Sam awakens one morning to discover that all his lies have come true. The pipsqueak is suddenly the proverbial "Big Man on Campus," adored by pretty bubble-headed cheerleader Vicki Sanders (Amanda Walsh), stalked by his sexy English teacher (Teri Polo), and full of himself. Of course, the lies eventually come crashing down on Sam, who can't wait to return to humdrum reality—and to Annie, who may be the girl for him.

Admittedly, the filmmakers probably never intended Full of It to be anything more than a piece of entertaining fluff, but even by that lowered standard, it comes up short. Lynch and Stevenson have a couple of mildly amusing moments, as does Polo (Meet the Parents), but their game efforts aren't enough to jump-start the laughs in Full of It, which is mostly a dull hodgepodge of teen flick clichés and flatly staged, poorly timed gags. There's no fresh twist to the way Sam's lies come back to haunt him—and a prolonged running joke about the boy's dog repeatedly eating his homework is particularly lame.

While Pinkston does a serviceable job and makes an all-too believable nerd, he's neither charming nor funny enough to give the material the extra spark it so desperately needs to engage us. What little interest Full of It holds stems entirely from the luminous presence of Mara (Brokeback Mountain), a coltish newcomer whose forthright manner and disarming smile suggest the young Julia Roberts. Last seen to considerably better advantage in We Are Marshall, Mara has the unenviable job of playing Pinkston's soul mate. Never mind the fact that she looks nearly a decade older than Pinkston; or that it defies all credibility that this self-possessed young woman would ever pine for such an immature, socially challenged geek. Mara plays this impossible role with a measure of conviction wholly lacking from the rest of Full of It—and that's no lie.