The Way, Way Back
2013 film directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash
The Way, Way Back is a 2013 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film written and directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash in their directorial debuts. It stars Liam James as Duncan, an introverted 14-year-old who goes on summer vacation to Wareham, Massachusetts, with his mother and her overbearing boyfriend. It also stars Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Allison Janney, AnnaSophia Robb, Sam Rockwell, and Maya Rudolph, with Rob Corddry, Amanda Peet, Faxon, and Rash in supporting roles.
Faxon and Rash conceived the film in the early 2000s, but it spent several years in development hell before funding could be secured. Filming lasted several months during summer 2012. It premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, where Fox Searchlight Pictures (which also distributed The Descendants, co-written by Faxon and Rash, and where the film was originally in production) acquired distribution rights to it. The film was theatrically released in the United States on July 5, 2013, where it received positive reviews and was a box office success, grossing $26.9 million against its $5 million budget.
Plot
Introverted 14-year-old Duncan from Albany, New York, reluctantly goes on summer vacation to a beach house in Wareham, Massachusetts, with his mother Pam, her wealthy boyfriend Trent, and Trent's spoiled daughter Steph. Trent and Steph are frequently condescending towards Duncan.
On the way to the beach house, Trent asks Duncan to rate himself on a scale of one to ten.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “The Way, Way Back” as 2013 film directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2013 film directed by Nat Faxon and Jim Rash. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3560878. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2013 and 2012.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Way, Way Back”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Way, Way Back primary sources, The Way, Way Back archive and Back research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “The Way, Way Back”?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “The Way, Way Back” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.