I LOVED this movie as a moody adolescent for all the reasons you outlined–plus Otis Redding’s “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.” I even wrote an essay arguing that it was more than just a teen comedy–when I was 16. It didn’t get me into the fancy-pants summer program I was applying to [philistines], but I stand by my argument–and yours–to this day.

Although I haven’t seen the movie, it sounds like one of those unfortunate situations when the marketing/positioning of a film is one of the main reasons it fails when it’s released. I think people can sniff out when something is being promoted as something it isn’t — there’s the scent of desperation — and the people who do see it hate it because it wasn’t what they were promised.