Have you ever felt like you could burn the world down? -- Every day.

In the movie Rocket Science by Jeffrey Blitz, Hal Hefner is an average sophomore at Plainsboro High School in New Jersey. He stutters both verbally and emotionally and suffers the daily indignities of a typical teenager. With only a little encouragement, Hal falls in love with the star of the debate team, Ginny Ryerson and finds himself suddenly immersed in her ultra competitive world of high school debating, with its players, its politics, and its own set of rules. And when Hal finds his heart broken, love (or revenge) is the driving force that leads him to want to win the debate competition more than anything in his life.

Doyle
You okay?

Hal
Yeah. But what would you say are
your thoughts on love?

Doyle
It’s so late, Hal, and I couldn’t
find the off-ramp and had to circle
back three times and now I’m not
even sure I know how to get you
back to Plainsboro.

Hal
I guess, you know.... Well, it’s
nothing, I was just thinking.

Doyle
Maybe you shouldn’t think so much
about everything.

Hal
I mean it’s not, it shouldn’t be
rocket, rocket... it shouldn’t be
rocket.... It shouldn’t be that
but it feels like, sometimes it
just feels, you know. I guess what
I just want to know when, at what
point, you see, does all this
begin, or really start, to make
sense?

Doyle
All what?

Hal
Everything, all of it.

Doyle
I guess at some point.... see, you
reach a certain age and you’re in
Jersey, or someplace just like it,
and you stop trying to figure it
all out. It’s kind of like that.
You just are glad for what you
have.

Hal
And that happens to everybody?

Doyle
Pretty much but you let me know if
it turns out different for you.

Hal
I’ll do that, I will. I’ll find a
way to do that, some good way, to
let you know how it all turns out.