the scenic route is long and winding

Ryan Gosling, who critics say had a such a wicked turn leading the cast of 2000’s indie fave The Believer, struggles for air to shine in 2004’s The United States of Leland.

Though both films had their turn at Sundance, and even if I have yet to watch The Believer, let me say that US of L has an ambitious script that isn’t given justice by the treatment. One could say that cast and crew could have spent just two more extra weeks shooting and US of L would have been the powerhouse it was envisioned to be.

Leland P. Fitzgerald is an American teenager—a somewhat isolated, disenfrachised specimen who’s head always seems to be in the clouds. He’s not violent nor particularly harmful. He’s actually somewhat vacant, going about his teenage business so simply and without bothering anyone that his community is dumbfounded when he kills his ex-girlfriend’s mentally challenged half-brother. For the most part, they’re left cold thinking “how could he have done this when the autistic kid never connected emotionally to anyone, and thus, was never really “there”?”. How could this kid have mattered enough to be murdered?

The movie studies this in the now familiar mishmashed timeframe style, telling us about Leland’s bastard absentee of a dad (Kevin Spacey), the self-serving interest of his juvie hall teacher (Don Cheadle, as a frustrated writer smelling his “great novel” in his new ward), and confused (and confusing) ex-semi-girlfriend (Jena Malone).

What the film seems to want to say is that there’s not always a reason why people do the bad things they do. They might feel sorry but don’t always understand why or how it happened. And if they did, it’s because there’s no connection--to family, friends, lovers, the rest of the universe. This disparaty and ultimate isolation of everyone from everyone else is poorly explored and could easily have been the intellectual backbone the movie needs.

Cheadle and Gosling are easily the ones who give this movie its heart. It’s amazing how they carry this above water when it’s drowning in underdeveloped characters, subplots and too many philosophical meanderings. Gosling manages to imbue Leland with an innocence that is ultimately eerie. You wonder at all if what he did was criminal or an act of mercy. His ability to disappear physically into the character is notable, providing an affecting voiceover and facial expression while trying to mirror the emotional and mental blankness (as differentiated from “vapidness”) of many a suburbia-raised and media-parented teenager. Cheadle, meanwhile, puts one over the vaunted Spacey in the bar scene. When Spacey’s character says of Cheadle’s, “That’s why you’re not a writer”, Cheadle retorts with a quick “No, that’s why I’m not a bastard”.

With decent editing, a dry but sometimes effective approach, the film seems to suffer only from taking too much time set context. The makers seem to have forgotten that they are making a movie and not a book, where readers have all the time to absorb much context.

The United States of Leland has its charms and manages to provoke reflection. Imagine, though, how mighty this would have been had the screenplay refused to pander to the writer’s overly eager sensibilities.