Alex (newcomer Gabe Nevins) is a teenager who takes a liking to visiting Portland’s infamous skateboarding hangout Paranoid Park. While there he is stirred by the thrilling displays of virtuosity by some of the borders skating the concrete arena, mingling around and silently observing doing his best to stay out of everyone’s way.

Gabe Nevins in IFC First Take's Paranoid Park

Back at school, Detective Richard Liu (Dan Liu) is questioning all of the kids involved with skateboarding about a death at the local rail yards near Paranoid Park. Under the urging of one of his good friends, Jennifer (Taylor McKinney), Alex decides to write a journal of his experiences at the venue, the people he met there and the tragic events along the railroad tracks.

Based on the novel by Blake Nelson, Paranoid Park is another of Gus Van Sant’s recent forays into experimental filmmaking revolving around disaffected youth. Partially shot by the great Christopher Doyle (Hero, In the Mood for Love) and moving with an enigmatic poetic grace that’s undeniably compelling, the film is hardly a difficult sit.

Yet, much like the semi-confounding Last Days and the brutally unfocused Gerry, it’s hard to figure out exactly what Van Sant’s ultimate point is. The film lacks the clarity of his highly similar Columbine-inspired stunner Elephant, the insights and notions on far too simplistic and prosaic for a filmmaker of his caliber.

Still, young Nevins is surprisingly mesmerizing, and I can’t say Van Sant’s picture is without merit. There is a dreamlike quality to the narrative that’s intoxicating, all of it coming to a culminating image of accidental horror that’s viscerally effective. There is also something about the blasé adolescent world the director dives headlong into, a corrosive culture of benign indifference that seems to permeate through so many young people at the moment.

Combined together, all of this makes Paranoid Park an intriguingly beautiful and emotionally unsettling curiosity but nothing more. I can’t really tell people to pay good money to go and see it, yet if the DVD were sitting on my counter I wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to pass it on to friends for them to experience. It’s not much, but it’s something, and for a film as stripped down and as bare as this one that’s probably the best it could hope for.

Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)

Additional Links:

-  Paranoid Park Theatrical Trailer