I honestly rented this movie based purely on the title; it sounded interesting and Leland was my grandpa’s name. The plot and sequence of events was not completely original, but the writing and performance thereof was amazing. It held my interest right up to the credits. I was pleasantly surprised to see it was produced by Kevin Spacey and that he also played a major role. His movies have always left me with a new perspective on fairly ordinary concepts.

The movie’s story centers around a teenage boy, Leland, who stabs a retarded boy to death. He finds himself in the company of an aspiring novelist while in juvenile detention, and they spend most the movie discussing perspectives on life and people. Each discussion is complemented by a glimpse at some aspect of Leland’s life.

I suppose I like this movie for the same reason I liked American Beauty, for its simplicity in portraying some of the most complex subjects in our lives. Leland is but an honest observer to our daily lives, to the denial we relish in, to the lie that we often live. Thoughts about god and conscience tend to be especially interesting to me, so it was these two quotes that really stayed with me:

Leland begins “Maybe God’s there because people are afraid of all the bad stuff they do,” and he later concludes “Maybe we’re really scared of the good stuff. If there is no God, that means it’s inside of us, and we could be good all of the time if we wanted.”

It’s a heavy claim, but not necessarily far-fetched. I’ve seen fairly low viewer reviews of this movie, but I promise the writing is so strong that I could have loved this movie with my eyes closed.