Paranoid Park

Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho, Good Will Hunting) continues his minimalist studies of disaffected, directionless youth with this tale of a Portland teen named Alex (Gabe Nevins), an angelic-faced kid who skateboards around the city, including the unauthorized titular rink. Alex, whose parents are headed for divorce, feels pressured by his girlfriend to take their relationship to the next level, and he's also being questioned by police in connection with the death of a security guard (the evidence suggests a skateboarder was involved). Judged on the terms of conventional narrative, Paranoid Park is pretty much a disaster: the film is defiantly nonlinear, shuffling times and intercutting long, rambling shots with deliberately drab dialogue sequences as it follows, more or less, Alex's recollections, before ending on a somewhat ambiguous note. Still, the combination of calculated naturalness and almost mystical lyricism makes watching this film a fascinating, often hypnotic experience, as it smartly reflects Alex's adolescent search for an ethical resolution to a situation he can't totally grasp. The casting of young, nonprofessional actors—most selected via MySpace postings—serves to accentuate the weird blend of realism and artifice in this deceptively simple yet often profound film. Highly recommended. (F. Swietek)