ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies.

TIGHTLY CONTROLLED and astutely observed, Mean Creek is one of those small, unassuming films that haunt the memory long after the blockbusters have been forgotten. A tender portrait of a defining moment in some young lives, it begins like an Enid Blyton adventure and gradually takes on the darker hue of Joseph Conrad’s journey into the heart of human darkness.

In smalltown Oregon, Sam (Rory Culkin) is the perennial victim of podgy school bully George (Josh Peck). Adults seem indifferent to George’s reign of terror, so Sam and his older brother Rocky (Trevor Morgan) decide to teach him a lesson.

They lure him into attending a fake birthday party. The plan is to head out on the river with a group of friends. George will be stripped naked, forced into the water and left to make his own way home. Naturally, nothing goes quite as they had expected. George makes an effort, arrives with a present and becomes human in their eyes. He seems more in need of pity than pain.

Exacting revenge loses its appeal but there is a doomed inevitability to the tragic events that unfold. Mean Creek is a thoughtful drama in which the characters display a complexity that has become a rarity in American cinema.

Scott Mechlowicz is particularly effective as Marty, a cocky leader whose thirst for revenge says more about his personal circumstances than his dislike of George. Poised between arrogance and vulnerability, he provides one more memorable element in an impressive feature from Jacob Aaron Estes.

General release, selected cinemas
Director: Jacob Aaron Estes
Stars: Rory Culkin, Ryan Kelley, Scott Mechlowicz, Trevor Morgan, Carly
Schroeder
Screenwriter: Jacob Aaron Estes
Certificate: 15
Running time:  90 mins
Country: USA
Year: 2004
 
 
© Allan Hunter, 2005