Chris Herrington
Bullying is a strange phenomenon, but stranger than the actual bullying is the useless cacophony of adult responses. Between parents, teachers, and principals, a bullied child can get conflicting solutions: Turn the other cheek. Stand up for yourself and hit back. Just ignore them, and they won t bother you anymore. Without the intervention of an adult, there is little a bullied kid can do to be less of a target. So, when kids these days find guns and take them to school and shoot a lot of people and then themselves, I am reminded of the humiliating and helpless days when the young killers didn t have any friends, when nobody in charge helped them, when they felt most alone in the world and I understand why it happens. Not condone, surely, but as a former bullied kid I understand the feelings that must go into so terrible an action and the small but vivid culture that produces such an event.
There are two bullies in Mean Creek, Jacob Estes directorial and screenwriting debut. One of them is a spoiled fat kid named George whom nobody likes. The other, Marty, is one of those seductively cool kids who is more grown up than the rest because he drives and he drinks beer, though deep down he s probably just as lonely as George.
One day, when George beats up Sam (Rory Culkin) for the umpteenth time, Sam s older brother Rocky (Trevor Morgan) decides that enough s enough. He and his buddies Clyde (Ryan Kelley) and Marty come up with a plan to get George back by tricking him to go down the river with them, get him to take all his clothes off during a game of Truth or Dare, and then to make him walk home naked. That ll teach him not to beat up on Sam, right?
About a third of the film is dedicated to this plan, with the boys conspiring on how cool it will be to pull this off, how it will happen, etc. The second third is the trip itself, a leisurely paddle down the river in an old, beat-up fishing boat, with George lured into the plot by everyone pretending that it s Sam s birthday, and George would be cool if he went along. And what (mostly) everyone discovers about George along the way is he s not so bad. He s just a lonely, troubled kid who wants friends, not unlike the rest of them. This discovery might be enough to avert the impending trouble, but Marty is the spiritual leader of this group and Marty wants to play the game. So, the last third of the film turns on Marty s wanting to get George and get him good. It should surprise nobody that George dies somehow, and we spend a lot of time with the kids as they try to figure out what to do.
There is an honesty and a rawness to Mean Creek that place it in the good company of Stand By Me and River s Edge, two other outstanding coming-of-age films in which dealing with a dead body somehow hastens the growing-up process. Estes debut is patient and sure of itself. And while there s not a lot of plot to fill the film s 99 minutes, there is enough atmosphere to satisfy the length. The small Oregon town where the events transpire seems somehow complicitous in George s death. Estes offers numerous shots of the river slowly drifting by with bugs and wildlife wafting in and out of view and lots of litter and junky cars and rotten industry. The children seem a product of a decaying town with no parents and, in fact, until the end, we really don t see any adults. The surroundings don t seem to permit the accident. They seem to demand it.
Anchoring Mean Creek like harrowing bookends are the notable and noble performances of its bullies, Josh Peck as George and Scott Mechlowicz s Marty. They exist on the opposite sides of cool and bully, but they are both monsters in a way and sad kids who could maybe straighten out with a little love and guidance. Both are brave performances: Peck s for allowing himself to be ridiculed for some of the things he clearly is, and Mechlowicz s for allowing his cool to get torn down in pitiable spades.
Mean Creek may have a tough time finding an audience. It s rated R, so all those kids who should see it can t, and what adult wants to relive all that, right? But for those who do see it, the reward is a scary but safe journey to a place we all remember and choose to forget. n
Bo List
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