REVIEWED - THUMBSUCKER: THE prospect was less than enticing: yet another angst-ridden coming-of-age movie set against the stifling blandness of American suburbia. But for all its essential familiarity, there is a freshness to Thumbsucker that makes it more engaging than most of its genre counterparts.

The eponymous digit-licker is Justin (Lou Pucci) a skinny, lank-haired high school student who's bright but lacking in assurance. This is hardly surprising, given that his male role models are mostly insecure. There's his father (Vincent D'Onofrio), who releases his own sense of diminished confidence through criticising his son, and his school debating coach (Vince Vaughn), who longs to belong with his students. Justin's mother (Tilda Swinton), whom he adores, is a nurse so easily distracted that she enters a cereal box competition to win a date with her favourite TV star (Benjamin Bratt).

Justin confides in his long-haired New Age orthodontist (Keanu Reeves), who encourages him to break free from his thumbsucking habit, and this leads to a remarkable transformation in Justin that is carried off with subtlety by the talented young Pucci in what's just his second movie, after his role as the traumatised hitchhiker in Personal Velocity.

An appealing serious comedy, Thumbsucker marks an impressive feature film debut for director Mike Mills, a graphic artist who has made dozens of music videos and commercials. Even though the film is based on a novel, Mills allowed himself and his fine cast the freedom of extensive improvisation in the rehearsal period. The rewards of that process are demonstrated in the movie's acute and often amusing observations on the frailty of the human condition and the absurdities of modern life.