A combination of “River’s Edge” and “Bully” that’s gentler but ultimately more compelling than either of them, writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes’ feature debut is a relatively simple story told with uncommon authenticity and sensitivity. “Mean Creek” possesses a gritty eloquence that sets it apart from similar films about youthful misconduct that are usually either slick cautionary tales or splashy exercises in sensationalism. Its quiet, unforced approach to potentially lurid material carries a surprising emotional punch.
The narrative is basically about juvenile payback gone wrong. When bright but smallish middle-school student Sam (Rory Culkin) is beaten up by bullying classmate George (Josh Peck), his older brother Rocky (Trevor Morgan) designs a plan to exact revenge. He and Sam will induce gullible George to come on a canoe trip in supposed celebration of Sam’s birthday; they’ll be joined by Millie (Carly Schroeder), on whom Sam has a crush, and Rocky’s buddies Marty (Scott Mechlowicz) and Clyde (Ryan Kelley). Once they’re a considerable distance from town, they’ll force George to strip and make his way home naked. But things don’t go as planned. Millie, who hadn’t been informed of the scheme ahead of time, objects, and demands that Sam call it off. He and Rocky are already ambivalent about following it through, since George seems more pathetically needy than malicious, and Clyde–a fragile fellow who, as the son of a gay couple, knows what it’s like to be an outsider, too–agrees with them. Together they press Marty, an abused kid seething over his father’s recent suicide, to abandon the plan, and though he reluctantly consents, George’s vitriolic reaction when he discovers why he was invited in the first place leads to his falling in the river and drowning. The survivors are then faced with the choice of whether to try to cover up the death or come clean about it.
What makes “Mean Creek” so gripping is Estes’ ability to invest what might have been a crudely simplistic tale with dramatic and moral complexity while creating a plausible lower middle-class environment and drawing wonderfully natural performances from his young cast. The barely-glimpsed home situations of the various kids are well contrasted, with Clyde’s seeming fairly comfortable, while Millie, Sam, Rocky and George appear to come from slightly less affluent households and Marty from decidedly lower-class circumstances. The characters are nicely drawn, too; with only a few exceptions, their dialogue rings remarkably true. George is clearly a youngster with serious learning disabilities and psychological problems, whose tendency to act and speak out uncontrollably can’t help but antagonize people, and under Estes’ guidance Peck plays him very well, making him obnoxious but also strangely sympathetic. Culkin catches the owlishly nice-guy quality of Sam beautifully, making him a sort of pint-sized Gary Cooper type, while Morgan is exactly right as the gregarious but insecure Rocky. Kelley is moving as the thin-skinned Clyde and Schroeder both tomboyish and vulnerable as Millie; both are especially good in the aftermath of the accident, when they exhibit the shattering effect of George’s death on their characters in quite touching ways. And Mechlowicz is surprisingly subtle as the ready-to-explode Marty. One can imagine the part being done in the broad, over-the-top fashion that Judd Nelson, for instance, brought to Bender in “The Breakfast Club,” but Mechlowicz, while hardly jettisoning the character’s strutting machismo, also manages to suggest his inner pain without getting bathetic about it. Happily, this is a young peoples’ ensemble piece in which the performances unerringly strike the right notes–a real testimony to Estes’ care in casting and his directorial skill.
There’s nothing glitzy about the picture from the technical perspective, but once again the simple naturalness works in its favor. Sharone Neir’s photography isn’t showy, but it gives the river sequences in particular a kind of quiet elegance, and production designer Greg McMickle uses the somewhat seedy locations to good effect. Madeleine Gavin’s editing allows for the long dialogue scenes to play out without rushing, but still brings the picture in at a tight, tidy ninety minutes.
Like the river on which most of its action is set, “Mean Creek” has a deceptively calm surface. But the currents underneath are powerful ones, and thanks to the precision and commitment of Estes and his cast and crew, it plumbs them very effectively.