STUDIO: IFC Films
RELEASE DATE: March 14, 2008
STARRING: Gabe Nevins, Daniel Liu, Taylor Momsen, Jake Miller, Lauren McKinney, Winfield Jackson, and Joe Schweitzer
WRITTEN BY: Gus Van Sant
DIRECTED BY: Gus Van Sant
GENRE: Drama
RATING: R

The very talented writer/director Gus Van Sant continues his obsession with non-actors and what would traditionally be referred to as slow storytelling with Paranoid Park, an often-frustrating film that stands at the midway point in its auteur's recent filmography, displaying both the strengths and weaknesses of his recent stylistic choices. Natural, inexperienced actors and their believable style worked perfectly in Van Sant's Elephant, arguably the filmmaker's best movie, but similar, less effective choices in Last Days felt like a director too in love with his own work and being slow just to be different and contrary. Paranoid Park is that rare movie that gets it both right and wrong. At times, the naturalism is perfectly suited to the material, but Van Sant plays things fast and loose with his visual look, shooting several sequences in almost dreamlike slo-mo. However, these unconventional choices throughout this relatively simple story do add weight to the proceedings that wouldn't be there if the story was told more traditionally, and they impart a surprising impact to the film’s final scenes that you might not be expecting.

Paranoid Park opens with a young man writing the title of the film on a sheet of school notebook paper. This is very literally a story by and about Alex (Gabe Nevin), and you'll find out later that a friend suggested he write the tale to get it off his chest. Van Sant has always had an interesting eye, but the strength of Paranoid Park is the screenplay, which brilliantly recreates the structure and the tone of a high school skateboarder. Paranoid Park often goes off on tangents and makes some odd decisions as to what's important story-wise, but so do angsty teenage boys when they're working in a creative writing class. And Alex has quite a story to tell. One night, after hanging at the title location, a local skateboarding park, Alex tries jumping a freight train with a new friend and gets caught by a security guard. In self-defense and fear, he hits the guard, who trips and falls right into an oncoming train. Alex destroys the evidence and goes on with his life, but the cops show up at his school. But as you might imagine, Paranoid Park isn't really about the investigation into the murder of a security guard, it's more about how Alex goes on with his life afterwards.

At times, Paranoid Park can be painfully frustrating. There are several points in the story where it feels like it's just about to open itself up and let the audience in, either emotionally or with a heightened level of suspense, but that's always when Van Sant chooses to remind you that you're watching a movie. A scene of believable dialogue will often be followed by up to sixty seconds of Alex walking down a hall set to music. There's a sequence where Alex gets called into an official office to meet with an investigator, and we see him walk in slo-mo for nearly a minute to the song "I Can Help" by Billy Swan. Why? And then, after a ridiculously unbelievable interrogation where Alex's choices at Subway seem to be urgently important (although, once again, we need to remember who the narrator is and that might be how a teenager would write it), we see another elongated walking scene, this time set to Elliot Smith. Van Sant also chooses to remind us that we're watching a movie during some of the film's more emotionally intense scenes, like the death itself and a dialogue-free break-up late in the film. It’s as if he’s almost demanding that you don't have an emotional response.

That is, until the end. Even though I was frustrated by a lot of Paranoid Park, the final scenes hit an emotional chord that I was never expecting. Gus Van Sant is a filmmaker who knows exactly what he's doing with every shot, every line, and every scene. While Paranoid Park may not be a traditional moviegoing experience and may be a little too cold for most of its running time, Van Sant is really using those aloof techniques to add more impact to the story’s end. It makes for a film that isn't classically effective while you're watching it but surprisingly haunting when it's over.