Grear Patterson has created a captivating and masterful tale of high school Gen X youths (and some of the adults around them) wrestling with grandiose visions of self, pained explorations of love and sex, response to mental and physical abuse, and the clouds of loneliness that impede and cripple everyone, ultimately leading to a startlingly crescendo in which the world is never the same again. Lyrical, beautiful, hypnotic in its pacing and visual elegance, the viewer is caught up in rising tensions and emotional ruins. The performances are distinctively mature for so many first time screen actors. Patterson has an incredibly particular understanding of human relation as viewed through the lens of damaged people striving for better and bigger visions of themselves, and his actors risen to its expectations. The hushed and impressionistic telling, rightfully obscures and blurs to add to a building intensity, and romantic tremor. Nevertheless, I have minor complaints, and I emphasize minor: knowing the true story on which the film is loosely based offered me insights that might come more difficultly to first time viewers. There were just a few moments when the destabilization of the viewer demanded too much and could have been eliminated with only minimal illuminations. Only slight more character and background development, especially of the two young male leads, and their shared love interest, would have enhanced the film. Although it is important for the two young male characters to be deliberately mingled; in the beginning just a little more (only a very little more) distinction would have been helpful. In many ways this is a perfect film, and astounding as a first one. I gave it only 9 stars because the last scene is an attack on the glories and subtleties and richness of this extraordinary film - those last few seconds turning what is a deep and affecting experience into a grade D horror movie ending which should be expunged. Saying that, near the end, the calamity that comes could have been foreshadowed with just a few seconds more of realistic details of Adam's final watershed minutes. For me, replacing the current ending with such a simple addition would have lifted the film almost to masterpiece status.I hesitate to say what I think would work so as not to give any spoilers. I hope a director's cut will prove to return the film to the poetic tour de force it is meant to be.
