Add “The United States of Leland” to the recent string of Kevin Spacey bummers.
The work of a novice writer-director, Matthew Ryan Hoge, “Leland” is a half-baked, pseudo-profound tearjerker that reflects the suspicious influence of the last fashionable Spacey hit, the Oscar-winning “American Beauty.” Also an overcalculated fable of disillusion and heartbreak in suburbia, “Leland” was co-produced by Mr. Spacey, who plays only a supporting role.
The downward-spiraling actor is Albert, a famous but haunted prestige novelist who has failed both as a spouse and as father of the felonious title character, Ryan Gosling as a Phoenix teenager who has committed a senseless murder. Mr. Hoge is vague about the circumstances until the denouement, rigged for a shock effect that merely confirms his morbid amateurism. He prefers recurrent hazy allusions long before clarifying precisely what transpired on the balmy afternoon Leland stabbed Ryan, the mentally retarded kid brother of a classmate, Becky Pollard (Jena Malone). To accentuate the inexplicable, Leland was accustomed to looking after his helpless victim; he had frequently walked Ryan home from school.
The pain Leland caused isn’t nearly as conspicuous as the mystery surrounding his motives, whatever they were. This emphasis has the disgraceful effect of flattering Leland as some kind of very deep, though obviously mixed-up, specimen of contemporary youth. While in custody, he attends classes and attracts the curiosity of an opportunistic teacher called Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle), an aspiring writer who thinks that a best seller might be feasible if he can penetrate the kid’s diffident facade and uncover those hidden sources of rage.
He could save himself a lot of trouble by cribbing from a long, shabby tradition of tabloid sob sisters, because nothing but platitudes lurk in the Leland psyche and case history. If anything, the scenario would be more promising as the blueprint for a parody of problem melodramas that patronize dysfunctional suburban characters.
“Leland” is a little more heartless than most, as smiling on a homicidal minor seems to preclude an adequate regard for the stricken members of the family he has victimized. Mr. Hoge simplifies his task by revealing that Becky is a precocious junkie, so devoted to the wretch who hooked her that she had no time to become fond of Leland. Her sister Julie (Michelle Williams) is preparing to break the heart of her boyfriend, Alan (Chris Klein), who has lived with the Pollards since losing his own folks.
Mr. Spacey’s character, divorced years earlier from Leland’s mother, Marybeth (Lena Olin), returns to Phoenix during the crisis. Curiously, he shares extended scenes only with Mr. Cheadle, in order to respond sarcastically to the intrusive flattery of this stranger with a disreputable writing agenda of his own.
Having made scant headway with the failed marriage of Leland’s parents, Mr. Hoge invents a flashback in which the boy acquired a foster family in New York City during solitary Christmas vacations financed by Albert. That too proved a snare and delusion: Leland discovered that the idyllic domesticity of his surrogate parents was also perishable.
Disillusion a pensive boy this often and, obviously, he’s going to murder someone out of the blue, reasoning that it’s a mercy killing. Or so “The United States of Leland” appears to argue, in its belabored and dithering way. As a cautionary calamity, the plot pales in comparison with the movie itself. Mr. Hoge demonstrates how to make a sorry idea as stupefying and hateful as anyone could imagine. If you need pointers on miscalculating a feature debut, look no further.
TITLE: “The United States of Leland”
RATING: R (Occasional profanity, graphic violence, sexual allusions and depictions of drug use)
CREDITS: Written and directed by Matthew Ryan Hoge. Cinematography by James Glennon. Production design by Edward T. McAvoy. Costume design by Genevieve Tyrrell. Music by Jeremy Enigk.
RUNNING TIME: 104 minutes
MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS
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