Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by jamesgarvin (A) on May 09, 2006 at 07:54:08

2004 film featuring Rory Caulkin as a boy small for his age, picked on by a bigger classmate. Caulkin's older brother devises a plan in which a group of kids will invite the bully boating on a local river, strip him, push him out of the boat, then make him walk home naked. At the beginning of the trip, they have misgivings, realize the bully acts from loneliness, and call off the plan.

Predictably, things go wrong. The film is really not about what happens, but rather about how these teenages handle what happens. It is refreshing to see a film showing teenagers with thoughts deeper than sex, drugs, and acting like typical Hollywood characterizations. The film shows an intelligence, and respect for it's subjects, than is far deeper than you generally see in U.S. films. There is a scene in whick one of the teens, a girl, walks home, enters her room, then stares at herself in a full length mirror, and we know that she is not admiring herself. Guilt is something you hardly see teens experiencing in most films.

The director and writer also subtedly communicate a philosophy of tolerance. The kids which make the good decisions come from a variety of backgrounds - three are from traditional backgrounds of two involved parents or varying economic backgrounds, one is from an affluent household in which he is raised by two gay men. The child from a broken home is the one who makes bad choices.

I am not suggesting that it is a great film, but certainly worth an hour and a half. The actors are largely unknown, but are very competent and believable. The writing is believable, with teenagers doing and saying things that real teens do and say. The payoff in the film is watching how these teens handle a situation, and I must say I was absorbed.