Genre: Drama

Mean Creek

Directed and written

by Jacob Aaron Estes

Starring Rory Culkin, Joshua Peck, Carly Schroeder

Classification: 14A

Rating: ***

Youth may be wasted on the young, but the movies sure aren't -- teenagers have a stranglehold on the big screen. In fact, a cynic might argue that pictures now routinely fall into one of two broad categories: those made for teens and those made about them.

The former, of course, have long been the order of the day -- comic-book adaptations, gross-out yukfests, action flicks, pricey blockbusters, all pitched to an adolescent sensibility and to anyone else who (for a few hours in the good name of entertainment) wishes to regress to that happy state.

The latter -- films with teenagers as the specific subject matter -- are just as reductive, since they tend to fall into an opposing pair of clichéd camps, either the frothy comedy (13 Going on 30) or the brutal tragedy (just plain Thirteen). Apparently, screen teens are the ultimate drama queens -- when they're not laughing, they're dying.

They're dying in Mean Creek. Certainly, after the horror of Columbine, we've seen a lot of teenage tragedy on film. But works like Elephant and Bully are only a continuation of a heritage that stretches from Rebel Without a Cause (the movie that invented teenagers) onward. Lord of the Flies, If, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, River's Edge, Dead Poets Society, Boyz N the Hood -- movie teenagers are always going into that good night, and never gently. They're at it again here, but say this for Mean Creek -- it's a superior example of the sad breed.

Writer/director Jacob Aaron Estes opens with a familiar figure, the oversized ogre that is the school bully. His name is George (Joshua Peck) in this outing, and together with his bad attitude, he also packs a video camera -- the better to document his every narcissistic thought and deed.

The camera-within-a-camera is our first clue that Estes plans to delve into the bully's mindset, to let us share his aggressive point of view. But that comes later. Early on, the script is content to initiate the encounter between George and his victim, the much smaller Sam (Rory Culkin, of the vast Culkin clan) who gets his face bloodied for no good reason at all.

With this mini-burst of violence over, the film settles down to introduce the other principals and establish the social milieu. There's Sam's young girlfriend Millie (Carly Schroeder) -- they're both just starting out in high school. And there's his older sibling Rocky (Trevor Morgan), and Rocky's rather volatile friend Marty (Scott Mechlowicz), along with Marty's still older and loutish brother.

This chronological range -- early through mid to late teens -- is crucial, allowing Estes to explore the rigid hierarchy among teenagers, a strict pecking order based exclusively on age and size. Within that hierarchy, he shows us the lower orders instinctively deferring to the higher, and nicely expands his theme: Like it or not, teenage life ain't a democracy -- a certain degree of fearful obedience, if not outright bullying, is woven into the social structure.

As for the specific milieu, it's a small town in Oregon, complete with tracks that have a wrong side and the kind of mothers who don't play bridge. On the car of one such mommy, a bumper sticker proudly boasts: "My child can kick the crap out of your honour student." This firmly sets the mood for the inevitable revenge plot, where the kids hatch a plan to lure George into the woods, then subject him to trial by humiliation.

The day arrives and deep into the wild they trek, then onto the river, where the sun is brilliant, the air perfectly still, and the water a glittering mirror -- physical nature is showing off its beauty, human nature is not (in case we miss the point, Estes includes a pointed echo of Deliverance).

Yet here's when the perspective shifts, forcing us to look inside George's fragile psyche. What we see (courtesy of a riveting performance from Peck) is a nerdy giant blithely unaware of his own nerdiness, and pathetically eager to be liked by a group he's come to view as potential friends. The other kids sense that desperation in him, and the big lug no longer seems like fair game -- all but Marty want to call off the revenge scheme.

At this point, the suspense -- and it's considerable -- lies in their indecision. But then, unexpectedly, the perspective shifts once more. Refusing to sentimentalize the bully, Estes solicits our sympathy only to withdraw it again -- the very neediness that makes George pathetic can also make him cruel. And dangerous. Cue the further violence of the climax, and a moral quandary considerably more intricate than the genre usually permits.

This is terrific, but it's as good as things get. After a solid start and a strong buildup through two acts, the movie fumbles the resolution. Ethical lines that were convincingly wavy suddenly straighten out, too quickly and too neatly. It's as if Estes bullies himself out of his original intentions, turning a subtle character study into a simple object lesson. So, through the vast land mass of the teen movie, Mean Creek flows with intelligent purpose and thematic passion, at least until it doesn't -- that final bend is a killer.