Michael Cuesta's TWELVE AND HOLDING is one of the most honest and most bittersweet films about growing up that I can think of. It details the lives and the minds of children with startling honesty and sweet simplicity. It is one of the few films I can say I've seen that treats it's subject matter in a very mature and brave way. It is sweet, sad, disturbing, funny, and all too real.
The film details the affected lives of three children having difficulty recovering from the death of a close friend of theirs. Jacob(Conor Donovan) is the twin brother of Rudy, the boy who was killed. Jacob must deal with the guilt as well as the grief of his parents and of the accidental murderers. Leonard and Malee are close friends of Jacob. Malee falls in love with an ex-firefighter, Gus(Jeremy Renner), she meets at Rudy's funeral and subsequently tries to seduce him. Leonard suffers an injury as a result of the accident that killed Rudy and now has no ability to taste his food and uses it to his advantage to lose weight, despite the attitude of his parents.
While the film occasionally drifts a tiny bit into cliché territory, this is a hard hitting and truly shattering experience. This is only Michael Cuesta's second film(his first being one of my personal favorites, L.I.E.) and yet he continues to surprise me with the overwhelming sense of clarity to be found in his films. TWELVE AND HOLDING is a startling reminder of the creativity and imagination to be found in the minds of today's independent filmmakers. The characters in this film are all so beautiful and so terrifying at the same time, particularly the characters of Gus and of Jacob. Very few of the characters are two-dimensional and they all are flawed in ways that make sense and that don't necessarily make them bad people. However, bad things come out of the mistakes of the characters. The ways in which the events are depicted are simply unforgettable. I've said too much already. Just see this film.
The film details the affected lives of three children having difficulty recovering from the death of a close friend of theirs. Jacob(Conor Donovan) is the twin brother of Rudy, the boy who was killed. Jacob must deal with the guilt as well as the grief of his parents and of the accidental murderers. Leonard and Malee are close friends of Jacob. Malee falls in love with an ex-firefighter, Gus(Jeremy Renner), she meets at Rudy's funeral and subsequently tries to seduce him. Leonard suffers an injury as a result of the accident that killed Rudy and now has no ability to taste his food and uses it to his advantage to lose weight, despite the attitude of his parents.
While the film occasionally drifts a tiny bit into cliché territory, this is a hard hitting and truly shattering experience. This is only Michael Cuesta's second film(his first being one of my personal favorites, L.I.E.) and yet he continues to surprise me with the overwhelming sense of clarity to be found in his films. TWELVE AND HOLDING is a startling reminder of the creativity and imagination to be found in the minds of today's independent filmmakers. The characters in this film are all so beautiful and so terrifying at the same time, particularly the characters of Gus and of Jacob. Very few of the characters are two-dimensional and they all are flawed in ways that make sense and that don't necessarily make them bad people. However, bad things come out of the mistakes of the characters. The ways in which the events are depicted are simply unforgettable. I've said too much already. Just see this film.