The United States of Leland

The United States of Leland

The United States of Leland

There are many fascinating things I've learned about life and people in this wonderful movie. Let me list some... 1. To cure autism it is best to kill the person who carries it. 2. When you spew fortune-cookie wisdom, some viewers consider that "deeply intelligent". 3. In order to kill someone who is in jail, do the following: fake a criminal act, get arrested and then hope that you'll be sent to the same prison and then same section as your intended victim. 4. Male teens who have been neglected and ignored by their fathers turn to killing autistic kids for comfort. 5. Male teens who grow up in dysfunctional families are wise beyond their years - which naturally leads them to kill retarded children. 6. Murderers aren't such bad people after all. 7. Sheer sadism has nothing to do with people who kill retarded children. 8. Good actors, such as Kevin Spacey, are often not all that bright. He produced this baloney. 9. Playing cheap college-radio alternative soft pop as a background for silly, "tragic" events will cause certain viewers to cry. 10. Playing cheap college-radio plinka-plonka crap is still considered "deep" enough for certain supposedly emotionally-laden scenes. 11. Ryan Gosling can't act. 12. Sherilyn Fenn is still being underused in films. 13. Lena Olin is still being overused. 14. I do not enjoy watching Fenn make out with a 15 year-old. Clearly, the director does. 15. Jena Malone and Ryan Gosling should never again play a romantic couple. They have no chemistry. 16. Supposedly intelligent killers of retarded children wear a dumb facial expression all the time. TUSOL is a pretentious little wanna-be intellectual exercise, but fails on nearly ever level. The movie has an absurd premise, dull characters, dialogue that is supposed to be insightful but comes off as shallow and trite, and we don't really get to care about ANY of the characters. All of them are DULL. Gosling asks: "Why do people only say that ("I'm only human") when they've done something wrong?" Is this supposed to be "deep"? I have no idea why Cheadle simply doesn't respond like this: "Because, you murdering moron, they ARE only human. Because that IS an (all-purpose) excuse of sorts. And because they won't say 'I'm only human' when asked to order a meal in a restaurant, or when asked how old they are." Another example: "You want a why, but maybe there isn't one. Maybe this is something that just happened." (Gosling) This is something either a moron or a liar would say. In reality, a murder - especially of a defenseless victim - does not occur for "no reason". Psychopathic or insane personalities commit them, yet we are to believe that Leland is neither. He is a "misunderstood genius", a "victim of a sad childhood". Yeah, right... If every kid with a troubled adolescence killed someone, soon there would be no people left on the planet. Leland's pathological pessimism merely underlines an inborn fault in his DNA code. It is not a result of his environment, but the environment merely sped up the accelerated development of that trait. However, Hollywood's liberal, environment-influence-is-all-that-matters, Marxist approach to psychology is trying to tell you something else. Leland is like the Dalai Lama, minus the old age and the phony grin: he says things that are supposed to hit a nerve in the viewer - and in the character whom he is speaking to - but these words are on closer inspection (something like a 3-second inspection) empty, holding nothing relevant, intelligent or new. Hence this movie can only appeal to people who are quite impressionable, easily carried by their easy-to-manipulate-emotions, people who would rather not think but let the director think for them hence deciding for them what is right or wrong, who is intelligent and who isn't. Frankly, I see no particular intellect in Leland, and this is made even more difficult by Gosling's one-note, apathetic "performance", which seems to very ironically imply that Leland might be autistic, too.

Despite tackling such weighty subjects as murder, drug addiction and depression 'United States of Leland' manages to have all the pain of a TV movie about a slight weight fluctuation. The problem does not lay with the excellent cast but with the fact that they don't have anything to do other than look miserable and spout some portentous dialogue now and then. The film is about the travails of the dysfunctional middle class and is aimed squarely at the self same middle-class, but this isn't a mirror to reflect their complacency, merely a gentle panacea so they can congratulate themselves if they haven't had to deal with this many problems in their lives and nod concernedly as the wonderful Anne Magnuson looks a bit miserable at her son's funeral. Maybe the director wanted everyone to seem as though they were just drifting through life unable to feel a thing, but I, for one, wanted one of the characters to let rip like Kevin Kline at the end of The Ice Storm when all the pain and rage pours out of him in a drunken moment of despair and pain. All the way through the film I was waiting for the bland exterior to be ripped away to reveal the raw beating heart of the movie but this, alas, is never to happen. Even prison isn't too bad in this film - just an inconvenience which means that the characters can't get to feel the sun of their faces as much as they'd like. The director never manages to convey that the characters are repressing their feelings nor that they are really suffering, they just stoically trudge around in their designer gear looking a bit put upon. The United States of Leland is directed with all the drama of a headache advert ; sure Jena Malone's hair goes a bit lank and stringy every time she has some heroin but that little fashion crisis is about as much insight into her suffering as we ever get. Ryan Gosling wanders around and makes a few vaguely poetic statements about strawberries and it isn't until the very end of the film that the viewer begins to understand what led to his actions and by then I , for one, was just about beyond caring. The United States Of Leland is a film that promises much but never delivers. It wears its class on its sleeve and the presence of such a good cast seems to be all the justification it needs to exist. This isn't a BAD film as much as it is a lazy film; a quasi-poetic study of depression and sadness without any real feeling

One wonders about the state of a society that produce a father like Albert T. Fitzgerald, who we first meet on a plane, as he is heading toward the place he abandoned a long time ago, and where he left a wife and a child who is now accused of murdering a mentally challenged boy. When we first see him, he has caught a headline in the paper the woman in front of him is reading. Rather rudely, he asks her if he could have the newspaper, and the lady offers other sections. Well, that's not what he asked, what he wants the woman to do, is to give him the front section she is reading. Matthew Ryan Hoge wrote and directed this disturbing film that reflects, in many ways, our society as it is today. In fact, Mr. Hoge is pointing out exactly at what is wrong with it. The film presents Leland, a teen ager who can't even differentiate between fantasy and reality. It's evident that killing a human being, even the sweet and innocent boy who hasn't done anything to deserve it, will have fatal consequences, not only for himself, but for his own family, and the family of the slain boy. In fact, Leland seems to have no idea about what motivated him to commit the crime for he does not show any repentance about it. It's obvious Leland has been traumatized by his parents divorce. His own father is an aloof man who couldn't care less about him. It's Pearl, the teacher in the juvenile detention center who sees the turmoil inside the young man and wants to help, but unfortunately, he doesn't have a chance. The best thing in the film is Don Cheadle, a great actor who always delivers. The ensemble cast does good work under Mr. Hoge's direction. Kevin Spacey has a good opportunity playing the egotistical father of the accused murderer and makes us detest him for being an arrogant idiot. Although a bit long, the film leaves us with more questions than what it answered.

There are subtleties in this film that I think a lot of people may miss if they're not careful. You really need to follow what Leland says and read his character to figure out the intended "why" the movie presents at the end. Nothing it solid, it's not definite, it's about what the individual viewer takes out of it. I think that was the plan from the get-go, people aren't meant to all understand it in the same way, it's almost about forming your own personal relationship with Leland in order to maybe feel him a little better. The storyline is interesting but its summary could never explain what the movie really is. It's dramatic and thought provoking, a lot of heavy ideas, but the pace of the movie is almost soothing, even with its more intense scenes with yelling. I think it's probably Leland, he's just calm and almost serene, even for all of his sadness. The movie personifies Leland in a way. Of course it is captivating and draws you in if you let it, but there are some recycled ideas. I mean, Leland has a lot of impressive dialogue, he is anything but typical, but he's not a prophet. Everything he says is not a revelation, many people I know have mentioned things he mentioned, even I have observed a few things he's observed. Leland is the unique and attractive character he is probably mostly for Ryan Gosling's portrayal. In the end the acting is all exceptional, there are no real bad guys, there is no way to psychologically evaluate Leland, only to maybe understand him and life a little better. Comparable to Igby Goes Down I think, not comedic, but similar in its general outlook on life.

This movie is like reading an 8th grader's goth poetry: self-important, self-indulgent, and hyper dramatic, death is so romantic, heroin use is so cool, and I'm so deep and important because I'm sad. Actually, it's worse than reading junior high goth poetry. I am a huge fan of Ryan Gosling and he was terrible here. It's a minor feat to make Gosling unwatchable, but they did it. This film is not deep or profound, but indulgent and false. I challenge anyone to find a more clichéd role in film than Kevin Spacey's writer character who abandons his son, then sits in a hotel bar with a bottle of scotch solo, or worse, sits in his car with a voice recorder and says, "there was a time when we moved through life, with something like electricity..." . Laughable. Here's the story for you: Leland, a weird, squeaky voiced misfit who appears to be missing a few points of articulation in his body (Gosling) begins to date a super cool hipster music junkie (Mallone) and then she dumps him. This sends Gosling out of orbit, and he stabs to death Mallone's retarded brother. Then Leland goes to juvie and has really deep conversations with Don Cheadle and another detainee. Cheadle is a failed writer who wants to write about Leland because he's so fascinating, and who can argue that a semi-retarded squeaky voiced kid shuffling his feet and looking like he has to take a dump is not fascinating? Cheadle confronts Leland's missing dad, Spacey, cheats on his girlfriend because he wants to do bad things and gains Insight. Leland writes a surefire best-seller diary and gives it to Cheadle, then gets knifed in the yard by Chris Klein. Klein is the live-in boyfriend of Mallone's sister. He gets dumped, and then overwhelmed when Leland knifes the kid, so decides to get locked up in juvie to have a go at Leland. Wow, all these parts, these machinations, it's like a Swiss watch! Um... no. When Klein finally knifes Leland, he says off-camera "it's over." But it isn't. You still have to watch some closeups of Leland, because he's so profound, and tragic, and he's like a saint or an angel come to earth to tell us about our sad lives. That's what having your first girlfriend dump you will do. You'll all go out and stab retarded kids in the park, because, see, life is so heavy and we're all ignoring the sadness. Meanwhile, the characters all repeat dialogue about "making mistakes" and "doing nothing wrong" and somewhere buried in all this is the conceit that we all make mistakes. WOW, you didn't see that one coming, did you? This movie is not good. Don't waste your time.

The title comes from an alteration an adolescent inmate in a correctional facility makes on the front cover of his school book on government, titled "The United States;" he adds "of (his name)." Many characterizations in this movie work well -- the scenes between Leland (Ryan Gosling) and Becky (Jena Malone), Pearl (Don Cheadle) and father Fitzgerald (Spacey) as well as with Leland, Becky and sister Julie (Michelle Williams), among many others. But the central thread of this movie -- the fulcrum on which everything hangs -- is the character and motives of Leland. He's a somewhat shy, passive, nice high school student who daringly introduces himself to Becky whom (we find) is going to an alternative school because of a past history of drug problems. In Becky's family, she has a sister, Julie, who's just graduating from high school and preparing to go on to college; Julie's boy friend, Julie's age (and whose parents' had recently died) is also living with them. Leland lives with his mother; his father (Kevin Spacey) and mother have long been divorced and his father is a famous novelist. Leland is very perceptive. The young boy in "The Sixth Sense" saw dead people; Leland sees teenage lovers and recognizes that years later they will divorce, that pain is going to follow many people's present experience of happiness. BUT, for reasons that are never made explicit, his prescient gift seems to operate some times, for some people, some relationships, and not for others. ??? Parts of the movie feel a bit like a derivative quilt -- borrowing from "American Beauty," "The Sixth Sense," "The Graduate," and possibly some others I didn't recognize. That wouldn't be bad if only the character of Leland worked. I think Gosling did a great job of playing Leland but the script and the story imposed limitations. Would such an observant, meditative young man ever be homicidal? Even for altruistic reasons? Nothing in the film gives a reason for this. I'm a retired therapist with much experience working with families and teenagers; while many of the reactions shown in the film work -- this part, this most essential element certainly does not. And there is at least one other element which, in my experience, would not fit with real life although it's not as critical. The reason for the differences between the sisters, Becky and Julie, are never hinted at but that's okay. Once two sibs begin occupying different roles (one the all good girl, the other the troubled one), the roles themselves can begin driving each other to more extreme positions. For the troubled one, Becky, it's kind of, "what do I have to do to be loved around here -- give up being me and become Julie?" And the pressure to live up to being the All-Good, parent-pleasing child, is no less intense on Julie. So, why would she break up with her boy friend of long-standing and of whom her parents so obviously approve? Don Cheadle was good as Leland's teacher; all others were good in their parts. 98% of the scenes were good. What was missing was that crucial slip in understanding human nature. Good acting; flawed story and psychology; worth seeing; not a total loss.

Every role, down to the smallest, has been cast and acted with bravado. The extraordinary Jena Malone never takes a misstep. Her two co-stars are equal to her in this film. Ryan Gosling may be the best actor of his generation. Chris Klein gives his best performance to date. This is a thought and conversation provoking film that should be seen by teens and young adults. You'll think and talk about this film for days. Highly recommended.

Leland P. Fitzgerald (Ryan Gosling) has committed an unspeakable crime, the stabbing of the retarded younger brother of his ex-girlfriend Becky (Jena Malone). No one, least of all Leland himself, can explain why he's done what he's done, whether the act was premeditated or spontaneous, done out of hatred or love. In the detention center, Leland meets Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle), a onetime novel writer who sees in Leland's case a second opportunity. But Pearl also wants to understand Leland's motivation and takes him under his wing as a confidante in the prison. The film jumps from the past to the present several times, often allowing the past to act as a context to the present, and vice versa. Writer/director Matthew Ryan Hodge shows how Leland's crime - and the events leading up to it - affect the people in his life, from Becky to her family to Leland's mother (Lena Olin) and estranged father (Kevin Spacey) to Allen (Chris Klein), a young man who is staying with Becky's family after the death of his own mother. The chief asset in the movie is Gosling, who is perfectly cast as the 15-year-old pseudopsychopath. Like Bartleby the Scrivener, Gosling's Leland just exists; he shows little emotion during the film, but instead his expressions belie an ocean of guilt, sadness, love, and rage. Each of the main actors offered perhaps their best work to date, save Spacey (who's not exactly a novice). Special praise is due to Malone and Klein, two young performers who are better known for lighthearted comedy fare than the heavy drama of this movie. Another huge benefit in terms of the story is that none of the characters is flawless; none are heroes out to save the day. This is simply not a black-and-white movie.