Park rangers

Paranoid Park tells a story of rootless—but trapped—kids | Sam Thielman

IFO Films

No matter how bad your family life was, these guys had it much worse," observes Alex (Gabe Nevins). He's almost right: The restless natives of the skateboard park where he hangs out are all but feral—they have no parents, no homes—and they live at the park by themselves, or with each other, which, as screenwriter/director Gus Van Sant observes in his new film Paranoid Park, amounts to the same thing.

Alex is a shaggy blond Portland sk8erboi with an unblinking, almost bovine cast to his 16-year-old face, belying the fear that is coming to a slow boil behind his eyes. The story Alex narrates skips around ("I didn't do very well in creative writing," he admits), but the thrust of it is this: Accidentally, he killed someone.