Review: ‘Paranoid Park’

Gus Van Sant returns his depressing genre of film making with ‘Paranoid Park’ which instantly I thought was a really funny title. All of the movies I have seen of his evoke an extreme level of paranoia and depression like no other director/writer.

‘Paranoid Park’ revolves around a skater kid Alex as he is sitting down to write a story. The story is called Paranoid Park, which is also the name of the skate park where the story for Alex goes awry. Alex is in high school, and is battling with his parents divorce, his girlfriend drama, and his best friend peer pressuring him into all sorts of things. You all know from the synopsis that he accidentally kills a security guard which in turn makes his life upside down.

The thing that really gets me with Van Sant movies is they are all super depressing, and everyone in the movies are cold. The parents dont act like parents, friends dont act like friends, and so on. This is probably to keep everyone feeling depressed while watching the movie, but its almost unrealistic. Both of his parents in the movie seemed to be great people, but very cold and offstandish with him. Just didnt make much sense. I would also probably enjoy his movies more if they were less focused on being ‘Artsy’, and just have more substance.

If you are a fan of ‘Elephant’ then you will definitely like this movie.

[rating: 2.5/5]