Devil's Playground

The "party on, dude" 16-year-olds we meet in Devil's Playground are at first glance your typical teens: they want to watch TV, go to movies, cruise the town, get drunk, and sleep around--except that these youths are Amish. For anyone whose perception of the Amish derives from seeing Peter Weir's Witness with Harrison Ford, this film festival award-winning documentary from filmmaker Lucy Walker will be a revelation as it chronicles "rumspringa"--the Pennsylvania Dutch word for "running around"--a rite of passage during which Amish teens are free to partake of the "English" world's pleasures before deciding whether to make a lifetime commitment to the Amish church. Following several teens over the course of this tumultuous period (a preacher's son develops a serious drug habit; a girl is shunned by her family after deciding to pursue an education off the farm), Devil's Playground wisely resists any temptation to take cheap shots at this pivotal "to be or not to be" moment in these kids' lives (although the scenes of "Amish gone wild" are startling), concluding with the sure-to-be surprising revelation that 90 percent of the teenagers who embark on rumspringa decide to join the Amish church. Recommended. [Note: DVD extras include audio commentary by director Lucy Walker, producer Steven Cantor, and editor Pax Wassermann, a clip from the film, three deleted scenes, and a weblink. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a fine documentary.] (K. Lee Benson)