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Paranoid Park Review

Movies.com Critics

5.0

Dave White Profile

… intimacy, mystery and an air of mournful confusion … Read full review

Other Critics provided by Metacritic.com

Critics scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 5.0
    83

    out of 100

    Metascore®
    Universal acclaim
    based on a weighted average of all
    critic review scores.

  • 100

    out of 100

    Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

    Youth and death meet again in Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park, a gorgeously stark, mesmerizingly elliptical story told in the same lyrical-prosaic style that has characterized his latest films.

    Read Full Review

  • 100

    out of 100

    The New York Times Manohla Dargis

    A haunting, voluptuously beautiful portrait of a teenage boy who, after being suddenly caught in midflight, falls to earth.

    Read Full Review

  • 80

    out of 100

    The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

    In Paranoid Park, Gus Van Sant enters the world of high school kids just as he did in "Elephant," achieving this time a much sharper, more focused portrait of how these rapidly maturing young people act, think, speak and behave.

    Read Full Review

  • 83

    out of 100

    Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

    Paranoid Park has the slightly glum insularity of minimalist fiction, but it's the first of Van Sant's blitzed-generation films in which a young man wakes up instead of shutting down.

    Read Full Review

  • 90

    out of 100

    Variety Todd McCarthy

    Through immaculate use of picture, sound and time, the director adds another panel to his series of pictures about disaffected, disconnected youth.

    Read Full Review

  • 90

    out of 100

    Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

    It's a new and inspired vision of a familiar state of being -- teenage anomie amidst the crumbling wreckage of a middle-class American family. In the space of 78 minutes, Mr. Van Sant and his cinematographer, the peerless Christopher Doyle, manage to suffuse that state with haunting sadness, ubiquitous danger, pulsing power and flickers of hope.

    Read Full Review

  • See all Paranoid Park reviews at Metacritic.com

For Families provided by Common Sense Media

OK for kids 16+

Poetic, disturbing story of lonely teen skater.

What Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that, despite its focus on skateboarding, this film isn't for kids. It includes a grisly death in which a man falls on train tracks and is cut in half (the imagery is vivid and upsetting). Themes are mature as well, including divorcing parents, teen sex, guilt, remorse, and a troubled sort of "getting away with murder." The one actual sex scene is very blurry and hurried (it's the teen characters' awkward first time). To fit in, a boy drinks beer. Some strong language, including "f--k."

  • Families can talk about how the movie portrays teen life (and, specifically, skaters). Do you think it's accurate? Teens: Do you ever feel like Alex? How does the movie convey what he's feeling and thinking? Families can also discuss how to handle a scary and/or overwhelming situation, in which you feel responsible but fear consequences. Who can you go to for help?

The good stuff
  • message true0

    Messages: Following an accidental death, the teen boy responsible struggles with guilt and not being caught; skater kids are mildly disrespectful to a teacher and a detective; high school kids have (protected) sex; parents are distracted.

What to watch for
  • violence false5

    Violence: The story centers on an accidental murder that's shown near the end in graphic images (a boy slams a security guard running after a train with his skateboard, the man falls under an oncoming train on parallel tracks and is cut in half, and his top half crawls toward the boy). At another point, the boy sees a photo of the man's legs and leaves the room to throw up. The boy hides his bloody shirt.

  • sex false3

    Sex: Teen boys discuss sex: A girlfriend is a virgin and pressures a boy to "do it," a boy offers a "hottie" as collateral when he borrows someone's skateboard, and the teens talk about buying "more condoms" after their first sexual activity. The single actual sex scene is very blurry and close up; a girl's naked torso is visible (but blurry). You also see her back as she puts on her bra, and her thong is visible from the back as she stands.

  • language false3

    Language: A couple of uses of "f--k," plus "s--t" and derogatory uses of "fag" and "fat lard."

  • consumerism false0

    Consumerism: Mentions of Rite Aid and Frappuccinos. Band T-shirts.

  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3

    Drinking, drugs and smoking: Boys discuss beer and carry bottles as they walk.

Fan Reviews provided by

2

Park-ing NOT Recommended for ?PARANOID PARK? = by jimchudnow
I?ve liked a lot of work done by director Gus Van Sant. This 80+-minute endeavor, however, is NOT one of them. What some people may call ?art-sy? in this film, I call SLOW-moving. It?s the sometimes interesting story of a teenage skate-boarder named Alex (GABE NEVINS) who spends a lot of time with his ?boarder friend Jared (JAKE MILLER), in part to escape the upset of his divorcing parents. One day, while fooling around on a freight train near the irregular skate park, Alex causes a horrendous catastrophe. The overall story is told with loads of what I call ?cascading? back-&-forth flashbacks, maddeningly wrapped inside what to me were a lot of often fuzzy-focused ?dead? scenes that go ?nowhere?. While Gabe at times has the appropriately general spaciness of a teenager, I found too much of it akin to ?sleep-walking? impassively through the story. This a not a ?horrible? film, but it (and especially the ?disintegrating? non-end of it) isn?t very good. At best, I'd give it 2.5 stars

2

by ColorMeHungryForArt

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