The United States of Leland
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Chris Klein, Don Cheadle, Jena Malone, Lena Olin, Ryan GoslingDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Surround Sound, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.77:1
Running Time: 108 minutes
Published: 2004-09-01
DVD Release Date: 2004-09-07
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Paramount
Movie Reviews of The United States of Leland
Movie Review: One from the Heart
Summary: 5 Stars
The United States of Leland presents an impressively rich and complex array of human problems--neurosis, fear, grief, confusion, rage and sorrow--yet it never gets bogged down by them, it never feels indulgent or morose (as in the case of Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia, for example), and it never seems forced or contrived. Its only motive (like Leland's?) seems to be to release some of the unbearable pressure of empathy, in the face of an overwhelming universal sadness. And because it's a gesture made in earnest--without airs or expectations or ulterior motives--the film connects; it connects to something close to the essence of being human--our shared loneliness, and the isolate despair of being an island, a nation unto ourselves. As Leland says, all the tears in the world can't make what has happened unhappen. But the tears come anyway.
In essence, Hoge's vision touches upon something profound: how the most apparently monstrous evil can come out of an excess of goodness, how the burden of empathy--of deeper seeing--can lead to the most desperate of acts, to suicide, for example, or murder. Like a distress signal from a lost soul afloat in a sea of lost souls, it suggests both complicity in despair and the possibility of release from it; like an aria, it appeals to audiences to let down the shields and the blinds, for just a moment, and look. Audiences could have cared less, however. Hoge's film appeared out of nowhere, and vanished back from whence it came soon after, under a barrage of critical incomprehension and outrage, and several attempts to boycott the film (by parents of autistic children, claiming it glorified murder--having never seen it, of course). I can think of no other recent film that was so unjustly overlooked as this, nor greater evidence of the nigh-pathological obtuseness of American film critics. (These are the same critics, mind, who hail a smug and asinine work like American Beauty as a work of moral depth, social relevance, and psychological poignancy!)
Audience and critics' indifference notwithstanding, however, make no mistake about it: The United States of Leland attains the highest goal of art; by expressing the bottomless pain of a single individual, it eases the sadness of the world. That Hoge isn't recognized and acclaimed as a brilliant new film artist--along with Paul Thomas Anderson, Alexander Payne, and the rest of the new indie lights--is perhaps evidence of just how unwilling people are to be reminded of that sadness. Hoge made a masterpiece from the heart, and was duly punished. The world (and Hollywood) rode right over him, on its merry and soulless way to nowhere.
Excerpt from DOGVILLE VS HOLLYWOOD: The War Between Independent Cinema and Mainstream Movies, by Jake Horsley.
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Summary of The United States of Leland
The United States of Leland isn't a whodunit. The opening scenes of Matthew Ryan Hoge's unusual murder mystery make it clear that Leland P. Fitzgerald ("The Believer"'s Ryan Gosling) is the killer. But why did he kill? Now that the deed is done, Leland is staying in a detention center. Everybody, but especially new teacher Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle), wants to know why he killed the mentally challenged brother of girlfriend Becky (Jena Malone). After all, Leland seemed to genuinely like the kid. Leland is just as confused (and can't remember committing the act), but he reveals more and more clues as he gradually opens up to Pearl. His estranged novelist father Albert (Kevin Spacey), meanwhile, just wants to spin another bestseller out of his son's story. Writer-director Hoge doesn't provide any easy answers in this compelling, complicated look at teenage depression. Featuring music by the Fire Theft's Jeremy Enigk. "--Kathleen C. Fennessy"Similar DVD Movies
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