By Mike Allen

Archives Reprint

    A gentle teenage boy commits a terrible, inexplicable crime, walks home in a daze and tells his puzzled mother - who hasn't yet learned of the murder - "I think I made a mistake."

    That word, "mistake," repeats often in "The United States of Leland," uttered by many of the players in this sometimes powerful, sometimes awkward drama of teenage isolation and angst.

    Using the troubled title character's journal as a framing device, the movie shuttles back and forth through time, setting up a mystery of motive. We know from the beginning that Leland Fitzgerald (Ryan Gosling) stabbed his ex-girlfriend's little brother to death. The question posed over and over is, why? Even Leland claims not to know, at first.

    As the shock waves caused by Leland's crime spread through his suburban community, we're introduced to the friends and family who shape his past and future. There's Becky (Jena Malone of "Donnie Darko"), his drug-addicted ex-girlfriend, and her well-meaning, dysfunctional family. There's Leland's father (Oscar-winner Kevin Spacey, also a co-producer), a wildly successful novelist who drinks heavily and stays far away from his son. And there's Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle), Leland's teacher at the juvenile detention center, who sees unlocking Leland's secrets as a sure way to jump-start his own book-writing aspirations.

    As this cast meets and collides, writer-director Matthew Ryan Hoge uses their interactions to explore some heavy issues: Why do people deliberately hurt each other? What purpose does religion serve? What defines good and evil? Hoge's drive to wrestle the Big Questions sometimes bogs the movie down as the actors struggle with contrived, pretentious monologues. Some far-fetched plot points don't make this stuff go down any easier; when the incident that provided Leland's motive finally comes to light, the plot's framework groans under the strain.

    But the movie also boasts moments of quiet power, as it chronicles friendships Leland makes in prison, the evolving relationship with his teacher and the struggles of his victim's family to cope with the senseless tragedy. And the movie's final scene - actually a flashback - manages to be both touching and chilling.

    The United States of Leland

    HHH 1/2

    At the Grandin Theatre. Rated R for language, sexual situations and drug use. One hour, 48 minutes.

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