Some actors are so magnetic, I’ll watch them in just about anything, even a movie as WASPy as a prescription-drug farce about the wealthy of Connecticut. I’m so glad I followed Robert Downey Jr. into the fabulous Charlie Bartlett. He’s joined by Ishan Dave as drama geek Henry Freemont in an emo haircut. The character was cast without ethnicity and written without an accent.

Kicked out of prep school for selling fake IDs, Charlie transfers to the kind of public school only imagined by movie executives. He shows up his first day in a blazer, a tie and a school patch with a Latin slogan. Charlie’s soon spending face time in a toilet bowl in the boys’ room while an over-hormoned punk instructs him on the social subtleties of public education. But Charlie figures out a way to become popular, involving holding confession in bathroom stalls, selling Zoloft and dating the daughter of the alcoholic principal, played by Downey Jr. in an uncomfortable echo of real life.

Charlie Bartlett’s elevator pitch sounds like American Beauty crossed with Ferris Bueller, whining about the problems of the prosperous, bored teens. But it’s far smarter than that. It’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang crossed with Catcher in the Rye — a funny, dark comedy rife with literary allusions and animated by Hope Davis’ loopiness and Kat Dennings’ smile.

Lead Anton Yelchin impersonates Matthew Broderick’s amiable amorality, voice and ’80s shades. His school is highly exaggerated and populates its student body with a token desi and a token Vietnamese kid. But Bueller was a mainstream comedy, while this flick — sardonic, romantic, eminently quotable — aims far higher. It’s brilliantly written by Gustin Nash, and I can’t wait to see what he does next.

Here’s the trailer: