The United States of Leland DVD with Ryan Gosling, Don Cheadle, Kevin Spacey (R) +Movie Reviews

The Ethics of Pain

Luca Graziuso | NYC | 07/07/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The premise is rather simple. A teenager, awkward, introvert and burdened with a sensibility that sears his heart to numbness, commits an inexplicable murder. An atrocious one at that. The victim is his girlfriend's brother, Bryan, who is an 11 year old severely autistic nonentity. The main role of Leland Fitzgerald is interpreted by Ryan Gosling with such compelling anguish that it magnifies the complexity of a fragile spirit to such a degree we cannot psychologize the troubled youth because we are disoriented as we observe the indomitable suffering Leland attempts to silence. Likewise we are given a stark visual of the two sets of parents, the questions that harrow them and the way the tragedy unravels what seemed to be a world pulling at the seams of every thread.

The emotionally detached Leland retraces his steps thanks to the invasive insistance of his juvenile hall educator Pearl Madison, admirably played by Don Cheadle, who is undergoing moral dilemmas of his own. Pearl's feigned confidence is contrasted with confounding and disarming depth to Leland's innocent aloofness. The emotional texture of the movie is further enriched by strands of a narrative that follows Bryan's other sister who is unsettled and dejected, an 18 year old who is not allowed to search and delve within her own turbulance. She breaks up with her boyfriend, he too a timid soul reaching for a stability that teeters on the brink of injected scrupolousness. If you then add the torpor and emotional sterility that Leland's dad, an accomplished bestselling author whose fame rests on his descriptive novels that indemnify suburbia, you have in focus a portrait of such a philosophical, psychological and ethical intensity undeniably impressive, expressive and teeming with the brute force that sterilizes our lives as it designates its shallow characteristics. Much more may well be added in terms of the narrative, for it deploys innumerable details that trace a perspective that becomes dissolved just when it seems to have become solidified most. The director, Matthew Ryan Hoge, frames the movie in such a way as to mesmerize the viewer through the autopsy of a society that in the wake of a murder discovers how much everything else is dead within. The motion-sickness tremble of the photographic ambiance of these quivering soulscapes, given full force, reaches a climactic burst when things seem to make sense again and our code of ethics reinstated with trust. It is in that precise moment that a second murder makes the depth of the movie's conscience become too vast for imperatives of psychology or social commentary. The movie stirs, moves, and shocks, but best of all it illuminates the pain of lives gone numb and that dorment force that craves reawakening."

Ambiguous story about struggle between right and wrong

Linda Linguvic | New York City | 05/08/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"What is right? What is wrong? It isn't easy to draw the line. That's the theme of this film written and directed by a new, untested writer/director Mathew Hoge. Ryan Gosling stars as Leland, a troubled teenager who has murdered a retarded boy. It's a horrific crime and it impacts his small community. Nobody understands why he did it and he doesn't deny the charges. While awaiting trial he's sent to Juvenile Hall. There, in a classroom, he starts a notebook entitled "The United States of Leland' in which he writes about his life. His teacher, Don Cheadle, is an aspiring writer. He befriends the troubled youth but, as we get to know his character, we soon see that he is struggling with his own values. There's a lot of serious conversation between the two with many close-ups on Gosling who seems wise beyond his years. The setting is the Juvenile Hall but that is downplayed in the film. There's only a small amount of focus on any other person other than Gosling. In flashbacks we learn about his attraction to the sister of the retarded youth he murdered, played by Jena Malone. And there's a whole story within a story about her drug addiction and other sister and a young man without parents who lives with the family and is romancing the sister. Kevin Spacey is cast as Ryan Gosling's divorced father, a successful writer who hasn't seen his son since the boy was six years old. And there's one particular confrontation between the teacher and the father which is a high point of the film. Mostly, this is an intentionally ambiguous story as each of the characters struggle with issues of morality. However, even though the acting was excellent, the characters never seemed real to me. There's lots of dialog and little action and nothing is ever really resolved. The conclusion is rather contrived by yet appropriate and, at the end, I was left with some open questions to think about."

Kevin Spacey's Sequel to American Beauty

stephen e mcgregor | chantilly, VA United States | 06/09/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I have rarely witnessed such depth of thought and feeling in an American film. This one made every other American film I have seen recently seem superficial. Kevin Spacey seems to be on the brink of being the premier artistic commentator on suburban family values. What a fresh approach to try to explore the deep thread of unhappiness within the American Dream. Teenage Leland's motivation for killing the unfortunate child (for whom he has the greatest sympathy)is not anger, which is cable TV's perpetual answer, but sadness, sadness at the human condition. This movie puts me into Dostoyevsky's world and I never expected this in American film. Every character is sympathetic because their real and not conventional feelings are revealed. I have not seen such astonishing humanity in a long time, if ever. Maybe in Boys Don't Cry but this film does not have the lurid overtones, just the quiet but overwhelming feel of humanity denied in a materialistic American culture."

SOOOO GOOOD

brennan | Augusta, MA | 12/29/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"this movie was flat out amazing. i have recently been on a hunt for better movies than the common droll that gets so much attention in theatres and so on. some of them are just forgotten big films that i never got around to seeing, and some indie films such as this one. I've come across a few actors who are consistently picking good movies, such as Johnny Depp, Jena Malone(who is in this movie) and a few others

My friend introduced me to this movie, and once i saw that Jena Malone and also the very talented Ryan Gosling were in it, i immediately agreed to watch it. i was blown away the whole movie. the script, though at times overdramatic, revealed things and feelings that i have experienced, which is something a good movie should be able to do. Maybe it was the caliber of the acting all around. Maybe it was the dialogue. Or maybe it was the introspective and truthful quality of the narration by Gosling's misguided yet wise character.

Any of those reasons could be the reason i loved it so much, but either way it is a movie very much close to my heart. Some on here like to say that it is boring and drawn out or that they dont understand what you are supposed to get out of it. All i can say to these people is that they obviously have never felt that sadness from other people and suffered from it as Gosling does. All i can say is that they obviously do not know true cinema when they see it."

Maybe they call it a senseless murder for reason

Lawrance M. Bernabo | The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota | 12/04/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

""The United States of Leland" walks a tightrope and it is not at all surprising that there are viewers who think it falls off and disappears into an abyss because there will be people who watch writer-director Matthew Ryan Hoge 2003's Indy film and complain that there is no there there. The Leland of the title is Leland P. Fitzgerald (Ryan Gosling), who is incarcerated while awaiting trial for having stabbed to death a mentally retarded boy. At least that is the headline everybody uses to describe the crime, but it turns out that the victim, Ryan Pollard (Michael Welch), was the autistic brother of Becky (Jena Malone), the girl that recently broke up with Leland. This becomes the first clue in trying to make sense of this seemingly senseless murder, but if you are looking for a clear explication of Leland's motive by the end of this film you are probably going to be disappointed.

That is not to say that you will not find such an explanation in "The United States of Leland," but rather that you will be better off trying to piece it together instead of waiting for somebody to explain it to you. That is because everybody in Leland's life is a piece of the puzzle. His father (Kevin Spacey) is a famous writer who knows nothing about this son because his key involvement with Leland is to send him to European cities to experience them alone. Jena has a drug addiction problem and a sister, Julie (Michelle Williams) who is dating Allen Harris (Chris Klein), who does not like what is happening to the Pollard family. But Leland made a point of walking Ryan home when Becky was otherwise busy, which only adds another piece to the puzzle.

Kept away from family and friends in an Arizona juvenile detention center, Leland piques the interest of Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle), a teacher and would-be writer who sees the mystery of the boy's motivations for the murder as having the makings of a great novel (fictional, he assures Leland's father when they meet in a bar, who is not comforted by that detail). Pearl is warned off dealing with the accused outside of the classroom, but the teacher's dreams of success drive him to engage Leland in conversation and to encourage the boy to write in a journal. The character of Pearl is necessary because our best clues will come from Leland and without his teacher's intervention he might not have anything to say. But while we privilege what the murderer has to say, what the others in his life say and do become part of the equation as well.

Perhaps "The United States of Leland" is another example of a cinematic Rorschach test where you read it the way you want. At the start Leland tells his mother (Lena Olin) that he thinks he has made a mistake, and certainly that line can put everything that follows into doubt. Or maybe Hoge has simply provided a movie buffet, where you can take what you want and come to your own conclusion as why Leland killed Ryan. For those who like every thing crossed and dotted by the end credits "The United States of Leland" will be infuriating. But for those who can enjoy coming to a movie on their own terms and reach a different conclusion each time they view it, this could be an interesting viewing experience. For the former the above rating will be too high and for the latter it may well be too low, but that is because the middle ground on this one is a very small piece of terra firma indeed."

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