Genre: Drama
Director: Matthew Ryan Hoge
Cast: Don Cheadle, Ryan Gosling, Chris Klein, Jena Malone, Lena Olin, Kevin Spacey, Michelle Williams, Don Douglas, Anne Shirley, Michael Peña, Martin Donovan, Kerry Washington
RunTime: 1 hr 58 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Some Drug References)

Synopsis:

Crime. Confusion. Compassion. They're all just states of mind. After seemingly ordinary 15-year-old Leland (Ryan Gosling) stuns his quiet suburban community with a chilling crime, he is sent to juvenile hall where he meets Pearl (Don Cheadle), a teacher and aspiring write who dreams of making Leland's compelling story into a book. As Pearl digs deeper into Leland's life and the people caught up in it - his mother (Lena Olin), his famous writer-father (Kevin Spacey), and his troubled girlfriend (Jena Malone) - he uncovers Leland's disturbing motive. The tables soon turn when the enigmatic teen forces Pearl to examine his own morally questionable behavior. Climaxing with a shocking collision of violence, understanding, and hope, Leland will take you to states you never imagined.

Movie Review:

I have very mixed feelings about The United States of Leland; it has an exciting and interesting “pop culture-ish” premise and approach but on the other hand, is weighed down by its more-so-than-often trite, superficial and dumb dialogue, and by watered down versions of characters that you suspect, are copied almost wholesale from some other similarly depressing indie film about dealing with alienation and angst.

So I don’t know. I actually do sort of like it (well, menacingly), but I must admit, it’s not a masterpiece… unless you consider Frankenstein one. Which is ironic, given that the general message of the film is that a whole is more than the sum of its parts. However, one can’t help but dissect The United States of Leland because there are so many reasons to dislike it or on the other hand, try to like it.

The movie is the brainchild of writer-director Matthew Ryan Hoge, whose 2 years of teaching experience in Los Angeles juvenile hall system has taught him that sometimes young murderers aren’t monsters, but just normal, muddled up teenagers who… have committed really bad mistakes. Using this as a source of inspiration, he came up with Leland P. Fitzgerald (played by the highly over-rated Ryan Gosling – sorry, Gosling fans), a sensitive, average man-child who talks with a slight lisp (in a “Mickey Mouse-y” sort of voice) often accompanied with a goofy smile, who says “and all that junk” too many times, and who, has no recollection of and feels no remorse after committing a murder. This is tricky ground to tread on, because these are contradicting values (murderous intent, normalcy) and it is far harder to portray them subtly in a medium like film – where audience more so than often prefer to take things at face value – than say, in a book.

Much of the film, of course, is spent trying to give reason to the crime through his conversations with Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle) who, like Hoge, teaches in a juvenile hall. Personally, this whole self-discovery, self-awareness plot is pretty much a waste of time, because the “why” here – as we quickly find out without much difficulty –, isn’t “why did he commit the crime?”, but “why should there be a why to justify for his crime?” Leland knows, and as he wisely puts it somewhere during the movie, “You want a why. Well, maybe there isn't one. Maybe... Maybe this is just something that happened.”

For those older and more sensible (or too jaded for this sh*t), you should really skip this movie. Unless you can withstand listening to pretentious, philosophical musings like “I think there are two ways you can see the world. You either see the sadness that's behind everything or you choose to keep it all out” every 3-5 minutes, then avoid my advice. Strictly for sensitive new age teenagers, or adults reminiscing about the days where they wear their “I love emo. I am a death poet!” badges proudly on their sleeves.

For the rest whose interest is purely for observational and “educational” purposes, I suggest for you to watch the infinitely superior “Donnie Darko” or “Elephant”.

Movie Rating:



(A hit or miss film. Why? I just can’t decide)

Review by Casandra Wong