Zippy 'Dope' wows Sundance audiences

PARK CITY, Utah — One of the freshest comedies out of the Sundance Film Festival is Dope, a wild ride likely to have people quoting it as they did movies like Napoleon Dynamite or Superbad.

The comic caper stars newcomer Shameik Moore as over-achieving high school senior Malcolm living in a tough Southern California neighborhood. He loves all things '90s, and still wears his hair in a high-top fade. He also dreams of going to Harvard, but hurdles loom.

A drug dealer takes a liking to him and invites him to his birthday party. He and his pals make a series of bad choices and a night of outlandish hilarity ensues in this energetic coming-of-age story. Think a wildly comical Boyz in the Hood, with a touch of John Hughes.

The pace is fast and the dialogue is zippy, and the filmmaking style of director Rick Famuyiwa has already set off a bidding war among distributors.

"For most geeks a bad day might be being the butt of jokes in class," Malcolm tells the audience. But for Malcolm a bad day is so much more. He must face a gauntlet of gangbangers, thugs, bullying jocks and drug dealers. And that's just on his way home from school.

The teen comedy also stars Tony Revolori (the earnest bellhop in The Grand Budapest Hotel), Kiersey Clemons (Bianca on Amazon's Transparent), Kimberly Elise as Malcolm's mother, and Zoë Kravitz as Nakia, whom both Dom, the drug dealer having a birthday party (rapper A$AP Rocky), and Malcolm are crushing on.

Dope is produced by Forest Whitaker, who also provides some voice-over narration. The soundtrack features new music by Pharrell Williams.