Skateboarding is a crime after all in Gus van Sant's adaptation of Paranoid Park, Blake Nelson's coming-of-age novel about a teenager who is involved in an accidental death. Fresh-faced kids who lose their innocence are van Sant's bread and butter, and if you've seen Last Days or Elephant, you know what to expect: adoring close-ups of first-time actors, endless walks down school hallways, and an overstuffed soundtrack accompanying more slo-mo scenes than all of Wes Anderson's movies combined.
Alex (Gabe Nevins) is a handsome Portland teenager with a cheerleader girlfriend (Taylor Momsen), divorcing parents, and a skateboard that seems permanently attached to his body. When he and his friend Jared (Jake Miller) work up enough courage to visit the rough skater paradise Paranoid Park, Alex gets into some ugly trouble.
As usual, van Sant is long on style and short on ideas. Characters remain types because too much time is spent showing them take extended showers, riding the halfpipe, and going up escalators in the mall. Paranoid Park is pretentious in the worst sense of the word: there's nothing going on beneath the artful surface, and the kid's dilemma generates yawns instead of heat.
