Review of A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (2006) by Chads. — 23 Mar 2007

If you don't think off-color language can sound beautiful, just listen to the way these Queens teens(especially the girls) spout f-bombs and racial epithets in their Astoria wonderland of hormonal urges and premature bloodlettings.

"A Guide to Recognizing your Saints" can sometimes be self-consciously arty, but this writer/director overcomes his indulgences by coaxing great performances from a group of young actors(especially Channing Tatum and Melonie Diaz) who know how to walk and talk like bad asses with just the right dollop of humanity.

Like Sally Potter's "The Tango Lesson", the filmmaker(played by Robert Downey Jr.) is the protagonist, which can be a risky move because people will automatically label you a narcissist.

Well, in "A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints", the successful artist, the guy who left the borough; reunites with the guy who became a bum, the guy who went to prison, and the girl who had a kid.

So yes, the filmmaker can't escape the perception that he's preening a little, but Downey saves his ass by looking genuinely humble and saddened by the people he left behind. This writer/director has talent.

Look for the edit that transitions the contemporary Laurie(Rosario Dawson) into yesterday Laurie(Diaz), looking outside her tenement window for the guy(Shia LeBeouf) who could've changed her life.

It's breathtaking, like most of this electrifying coming-of-age story that gives personal filmmaking a good name.