PARANOID PARK
Written, directed and edited by Gus Van Sant; directors of photography, Christopher Doyle and Rain Kathy Li; art director, John Pearson-Denning
With: Gabe Nevins, Dan Liu , Jake Miller, Taylor Momsen, Lauren McKinney, and Olivier Garnier. Rated R. Running time: 1 hour 18 minutes

Reviewed by Joel Johnson

If you look at Gus Van Sant’s films, you probably will notice a theme connecting his early films Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho through his entire filmography to his most recent films Elephant, Last Days, and Paranoid Park. That theme is alienation. Gus Van Sant is one of our finest directors at showing people who feel they do not belong. In Paranoid Park, he is on top of his game in showing the angst of Alex (Gabe Nevins), a teen-aged skateboarder. His parents are getting a divorce and while that certainly is a traumatic experience, the feeling that one doesn’t belong is endemic to being a teenager. Therefore, Alex’s alienation may have little to do with his parent’s marital breakdown even if it has compromised their ability to parent him through it.

Van Sant is best at showing alienation but not necessarily explaining it. Alex is most comfortable when he is out skateboarding by himself. He avoids socializing, arranging to stay alone at a friend’s house instead of being with family, with friends, or even with his girlfriend, Jennifer (Taylor Momsen). This is despite the fact that Jennifer has reversed the sexual eagerness-reticence quotient in the typical teenaged male-female relationship, making Alex the hunted instead of the hunter. His friend Jared (Jake Miller) introduces him to the local skateboarding Mecca in Portland, Oregon. Alex is mesmerized by the myriad skateboarders all displaying their talents, but he is not comfortable enough to do more than watch.

The film is, however, about more than just showing that this young man feels alienated. His alienation has both contributed to and is a response to a horrible event that lies at the heart of the film. The film jumps back and forth between the events that lead up to and those that follow this central action. This is the subject of a police criminal investigation, and the audience follows the story as it unfolds at both ends before revealing how this unremarkable young man is involved in a gruesome death. This is an interesting and well-made film featuring several nonprofessional actors. The basic problem for films about alienation is that they show people who are inarticulate, who often do inexplicable things that foster antipathy in those around them, and who are in considerable psychic pain. Dealing with these difficult, suffering characters often alienates the audience. Paranoid Park is not the kind of film that most filmgoers will find they want to see more than once, even though a small coterie of devoted cineastes may wish to see it multiple times to admire Van Sant’s craftsmanship.