Mean Creek

Mean Creek

Also reviewed by:
Thomas J.

With strong shades of Stand By Me, River’s Edge and Deliverance, Mean Creek spins its own simple story so beautifully that it deserves to be considered a peer with those strong influences. Although a little rough around edges – the over-dubbing is almost annoyingly obvious at the start of the film – the film develops into a totally captivating and impressive piece of work, well deserving of its many accolades.

The brilliance is not just in the acting, although the performances are all outstanding (led by my favourite Culkin kid, Rory, who has had me as a lifelong fan since Signs) but in the characters and the simple set-up. A bunch of kids invite the town’s bully on a trip down the river, planning an embarrassing revenge for him. When we first meet this bully he bashes little Sam (Culkin) for daring to touch his video camera while he was busy filming himself playing basketball. It is however impossible to hate him the next time we meet him, when it is obvious just how excited and happy he is that he has been invited along on the trip – he has even brought along a present for Sam whose birthday he believes it is. The characters notice this too, and the next hour they, and we, keep swinging between hatred and pity for the big dumb thug, the whole trip spent tense, wondering if, and when, they will actually follow through on their plan.

What happens may not be surprising, but it certainly does not detract from how it is handled. The film works wonders in making us empathise with the children, and it is hard to watch the final third of the film without putting yourself in their shoes and pondering what you would do in such a situation.

Mean Creek boats only a few stumbles. Contrivances like a character having two gay dads skates dangerously close to unnecessarily using such quirks in place of true characterisation. (two gay dads = one obviously picked on guy). The other contrivance was the aforementioned video camera. What is it with films with "creek" in the title and characters with video cameras? In Wolf Creek I had the same eye-rolling reaction when a character watches back some footage at a pivotal moment. Watching Mean Creek I may have loved the character’s use of the camera, but you just know it is going to come back at some stage.

The ending is also not quite the punch I was hoping for. The film doesn’t seem to totally know when to end – if it should end after the trip, or much later on when we see the full impact the trip has had on the kids – and it picks somewhere in-between. Not a bad ending, just not quite up to par with the rest of the film.

Over the last few years independent films have become somewhat of a new entity, a bastardisation of Hollywood and art-house fare, with half of them funded by big time players like Soderbergh and Clooney. Wes Anderson’s films may have an art-house sensibility, but since he pulls in a plethora of big names, his films head straight for the multiplexes. Hell even Jim Jarmusch’s latest film has a general release. How long before Todd Solondz’s new film stars J-Lo and opens alongside the next Terminator or Pirates of the Crapibbean? True American independent films, ones that take chances in telling little stories that have a big impact, leaving you to think long after seeing it, are becoming increasingly rare, and Mean Creek thankfully goes some way to filling the void.