For a working-class boy on scholarship at an elite private school, fitting in can be a challenge. In “The Preppie Connection,” Toby finds the answers lie in studying GQ magazine, kitting himself out in pastels and becoming an international cocaine dealer. Thomas Mann, clueless and eager, is an excellent choice to play Toby, the awkward kid who begins flying down to Colombia to buy pure cocaine by the pound. Nothing could possibly go wrong with this plan, and nothing does: Toby quickly finds himself becoming a celebrity to teen cocaine enthusiasts and manages to bed the snooty blonde (Lucy Fry) who symbolizes gilded Connecticut living. They both live happily ever after. The end. Well, not quite. Toby gets away with his coke excursion every time but once. Joseph Castelo’s movie, based on a real 1984 case at Choate Rosemary Hall, tries its best to channel 1980s style with a synth-heavy score, but nearly every scene comes across as a tired replay of situations you’ve seen in a hundred other movies. Toby is so un-self-aware that his journey seems like mere obtuseness; what the film has to say about youthful degeneracy is less than zero.
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