Arie Posin’s film needs a scrub, all right. It’s a complete mess. Ambitiously, the suburban-weird plot packs innumerable intrigues into its picket-fenced setting: suicide, atomised families, self-help, drug-dependency, teenagers bothered from The Other Side… all of which have been handled more acutely elsewhere. At least Jamie Bell’s on his mettle as troubled teen Dean, whose dealer mate has topped himself. Some kids are holding another lad to ransom in a bid to bag the dead man’s stash. But Dean’s psychotherapist dad (William Fichtner giving good smug) is too self-absorbed to notice. The bigger picture? It’s about “how people just don’t quite connect,” says co-star Rita Wilson on the standard-issue featurette. Despite his capable cast, Posin’s well-worked subtexts don’t connect either, settling on fantasy-fringed themes of generational distances that fall short of Donnie Darko’s take on the same. The stain of influence? Try scrubbing that off…
DVD Extras: 10 Deleted Scenes, 'Making Of' Featurette, Trailers.
