PARK CITY -- "The United States of Leland" is a complex and often compelling melodrama, at times almost verging on soap opera.
Writer-director Matthew Ryan Hoge in an eye-catching debut is attempting to demonstrate what a slippery slope morality can be. Good people do bad things, sometimes very bad things, and while it is easy to pass judgment from afar, the more one examines a single immoral act, the less certain those judgments become.
This is tricky dramatic stuff, certain to displease some and at times a bit didactic. (It mirrors Sundance's opening-night film, "Levity", both by writer-directors who have worked in juvenile detention centers and strive to make a "monster" comprehensible.) Despite how well made the film is with finely nuanced performances from a stellar cast and a fascinating jigsaw-puzzle narration, its commercial potential is limited. Paramount Classics, which acquired the film during Sundance, will need judicious marketing to reach sophisticated adult viewers.
A murder in a Southwestern community is so seemingly senseless that it makes no sense. Leland Fitzgerald (Ryan Gosling), an intelligent but impassive young man, stabs an autistic boy 20 times. He is arrested and sent to a detention center where a teacher, Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle), attempts to penetrate this student's alienation to discover the "why" behind the crime. He does so with an ulterior motive: A struggling writer, Pearl senses a good book in the youth's story.
In conversations between these two and a journal Leland starts writing, the story moves out into the community to survey the fallout of the heinous crime. Several people may have contributed to Leland's mental state, starting with his remote, terribly famous father (Kevin Spacey), a novelist living in Paris who hasn't seen his son in years. Leland's divorced mom (Lena Olin), from whom he has many secrets, struggles to make up for this absence. Then there's Becky (Jena Malone), the victim's sister and Leland's junkie girlfriend, who sends him packing in favor of her drug-dealer lover.
The tragedy has severely impacted the victim's family as the boy's father (Martin Donovan) and mother (Ann Magnuson) cannot cope with their grief. It also upsets the relationship between the victim's older sister (Michelle Williams) and her caring boyfriend (Chris Klein), whose mother died the year before.
Leland's community stretches implausibly to include a family of strangers that takes him on a solo trip to New York. Even here, dysfunctionalism greets him as the wife (Sherilyn Fenn) later discovers her husband's infidelities.
Pearl becomes the character through whom we view the story. As he gains insight into Leland's thinking, Pearl is forced to look at his own life along with the small crimes and misdemeanors he tends to dismiss by declaring, "I'm only human". What, the movie asks, is this connection between humanness and morality?
The "why" never becomes fully clear as it would in a murder mystery. Rather, the lives of these individuals shed light on Leland's psychological makeup and his dark outlook on life. It is a bit of a stretch that everyone is such an emotional mess, but the actors give precise and subtle performances that make the soapier aspects of the narrative credible.
Hoge is admirably supported in his first film by expressive camerawork, editing and design. Paramount Classics might consider toning down that soft-rock soundtrack, though, as it threatens to drown out many scenes.
THE UNITED STATES OF LELAND
Paramount Classics
A Thousand Words presentation in association with MDP Worldwide of a Tigger Street production
Credits: Screenwriter-director: Matthew Ryan Hoge; Producers: Kevin Spacey, Bernie Morris, Palmer West, Jonah Smith; Executive producers: Mark Damon, Sammy Lee, Stewart Hall; Director of photography: James Glennon; Production designer: Edward T. McAvoy; Music: Jeremy Enigk; Costume designer: Genevieve Tyrrell; Editor: Jeff Baetancourt. Cast: Pearl Madison: Don Cheadle; Leland Fitzgerald: Ryan Gosling; Allen Harris: Chris Klein; Becky: Jena Malone; Marybeth: Lena Olin; Albert: Kevin Spacey; Julie: Michelle Williams; Harry: Martin Donovan; Karen: Ann Magnuson.
No MPAA rating, running time 108 minutes.
Writer-director Matthew Ryan Hoge in an eye-catching debut is attempting to demonstrate what a slippery slope morality can be. Good people do bad things, sometimes very bad things, and while it is easy to pass judgment from afar, the more one examines a single immoral act, the less certain those judgments become.
This is tricky dramatic stuff, certain to displease some and at times a bit didactic. (It mirrors Sundance's opening-night film, "Levity", both by writer-directors who have worked in juvenile detention centers and strive to make a "monster" comprehensible.) Despite how well made the film is with finely nuanced performances from a stellar cast and a fascinating jigsaw-puzzle narration, its commercial potential is limited. Paramount Classics, which acquired the film during Sundance, will need judicious marketing to reach sophisticated adult viewers.
A murder in a Southwestern community is so seemingly senseless that it makes no sense. Leland Fitzgerald (Ryan Gosling), an intelligent but impassive young man, stabs an autistic boy 20 times. He is arrested and sent to a detention center where a teacher, Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle), attempts to penetrate this student's alienation to discover the "why" behind the crime. He does so with an ulterior motive: A struggling writer, Pearl senses a good book in the youth's story.
In conversations between these two and a journal Leland starts writing, the story moves out into the community to survey the fallout of the heinous crime. Several people may have contributed to Leland's mental state, starting with his remote, terribly famous father (Kevin Spacey), a novelist living in Paris who hasn't seen his son in years. Leland's divorced mom (Lena Olin), from whom he has many secrets, struggles to make up for this absence. Then there's Becky (Jena Malone), the victim's sister and Leland's junkie girlfriend, who sends him packing in favor of her drug-dealer lover.
The tragedy has severely impacted the victim's family as the boy's father (Martin Donovan) and mother (Ann Magnuson) cannot cope with their grief. It also upsets the relationship between the victim's older sister (Michelle Williams) and her caring boyfriend (Chris Klein), whose mother died the year before.
Leland's community stretches implausibly to include a family of strangers that takes him on a solo trip to New York. Even here, dysfunctionalism greets him as the wife (Sherilyn Fenn) later discovers her husband's infidelities.
Pearl becomes the character through whom we view the story. As he gains insight into Leland's thinking, Pearl is forced to look at his own life along with the small crimes and misdemeanors he tends to dismiss by declaring, "I'm only human". What, the movie asks, is this connection between humanness and morality?
The "why" never becomes fully clear as it would in a murder mystery. Rather, the lives of these individuals shed light on Leland's psychological makeup and his dark outlook on life. It is a bit of a stretch that everyone is such an emotional mess, but the actors give precise and subtle performances that make the soapier aspects of the narrative credible.
Hoge is admirably supported in his first film by expressive camerawork, editing and design. Paramount Classics might consider toning down that soft-rock soundtrack, though, as it threatens to drown out many scenes.
THE UNITED STATES OF LELAND
Paramount Classics
A Thousand Words presentation in association with MDP Worldwide of a Tigger Street production
Credits: Screenwriter-director: Matthew Ryan Hoge; Producers: Kevin Spacey, Bernie Morris, Palmer West, Jonah Smith; Executive producers: Mark Damon, Sammy Lee, Stewart Hall; Director of photography: James Glennon; Production designer: Edward T. McAvoy; Music: Jeremy Enigk; Costume designer: Genevieve Tyrrell; Editor: Jeff Baetancourt. Cast: Pearl Madison: Don Cheadle; Leland Fitzgerald: Ryan Gosling; Allen Harris: Chris Klein; Becky: Jena Malone; Marybeth: Lena Olin; Albert: Kevin Spacey; Julie: Michelle Williams; Harry: Martin Donovan; Karen: Ann Magnuson.
No MPAA rating, running time 108 minutes.
- 1/27/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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