Review of Paranoid Park (2007) by Carmen L — 26 Feb 2009

This movie was alright. It feels far longer than it really is thanks to the long, slow motion shots where nothing happens. While some people, I'm sure, enjoyed this method, my take on it was that this movie was made by a just-out-of-college film student who was playing with film angles and wanted to attempt to make every single freaking scene somehow significant. It was too much for the subject matter of the movie and really bogged it down. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that movie was made by a respected director like Gus Van Sant (Milk).

The movie itself often came across to me as independent movie elitist dribble. A moral odyssey? Hardly. The film did a poor job of portraying this odyssey (if it existed at all). Our hero did not change due to his involvement in the accidental murder and the detachment that I felt for all of the cast, did not feel like an intentional action by the director.

The acting was also decent at best. There were a few young cast members that made me cringe when they came on screen.

In all, Paranoid Park was a movie with a decent premise, that is interesting at parts but it is greatly flawed.