Nearing Grace (2006)

'GRACE' UNDER PRESSURE Henry (Smith) is a teen uneasily shouldering the burdens of love and loss in Nearing

His mother recently died, and high school senior Henry Nearing (Everwood's Gregory Smith) is not feeling too good himself: He's hung up on flashy Grace (Jordana Brewster) when he's meant to be with true-blue Merna (Ashley Johnson). Some Kind of Wonderful? No, some kind of earnest, stranded adaptation of Nearing Grace, Scott Sommer's late-1970s coming-of-age novel, with little of the vivid specificity of Mean Creek, even though the two share a screenwriter (Jacob Aaron Estes) and a producer (Rick Rosenthal, who also directs).