Despite the popularity of teen movies, there aren't that many that accurately reflect the range of adolescent life. The most successful are usually broad comedies that more represent wish fulfillment than reality. Independent dramas purporting to offer a more realistic look often go too far in the opposite direction, depicting teens as amoral, out-of-control nihilists.
Jacob Aaron Estes' Mean Creek falls firmly in the latter camp, with its naturalistic look, dark tone and brooding characters. But unlike films such as Thirteen or Kids, Mean Creek isn't a doomsaying screed against the irresponsibility of kids today. It leans a bit on the perils of adolescence, but its well-drawn characters and humor leaven the somber mood.
Estes' first achievement is casting actors who actually look like teenagers. Rory Culkin plays 13-year-old Sam, a junior- high student about to make the transition into high school, and taking tentative steps toward romance with his friend Millie (Carly Schroeder). Sam is beat up at school by bully George (Josh Peck), a fat, belligerent kid whose only friend is the video camera he uses to document his life. Sam's older brother Rocky (Trevor Morgan) concocts a revenge plan with his buddies, the introspective Clyde (Ryan Kelley) and volatile Marty (Scott Mechlowitz). Rocky, Clyde, Marty, Sam, Millie and George take a trip down a local river that starts as a prank and ends with terrible consequences.
That description sounds more melodramatic than the film actually is, because Estes manages to unfold events naturally, so even when disaster strikes, it doesn't seem out of place. These aren't kids who indulge in every vice known to teenagerhood; they're mostly good people with flaws who make mistakes.
Estes is helped by strong performances from all his actors, especially Peck and Mechlowitz as the two most violent, misunderstood teens. George is not your typical bully, nor is he the clichéd sad bully who just wants to be loved. Marty, allied with the sympathetic Sam, is at least as troubled as George, and Mechlowitz gives him the right combination of menace and pathos.
Estes goes too far into ponderous, arty territory at times, but his film, shot in rural Oregon, looks absolutely beautiful even when the images are overloaded with meaning. Mean Creek functions well as both a tidy little thriller and a touching coming-of-age story, and that's more than teens usually get these days.