All Critics (125)
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Top Critics (36)
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Fresh (110)
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Rotten (13)
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DVD (30)
Estes' dark sunlit tale cuts like a knife.
A low-key, low-budget thriller that reminds us just how cruel young people can be.
Although it is a flawed film, with a first half that moves slowly and sometimes tediously, it is redeemed by a second half that is gripping, not only for its action but for its moral complexity.
Works as a multiple character study, complemented by some of the best performances you are likely to see this year -- all of them from a cast of actors under the age of 20.
You could call Mean Creek a moral thriller. And the emotional currents the movie wades into are far more tricky than the gentle surface the kids' boat floats along.
I never lived a story anything like this, but I understand the emotional life of this film -- and I'm betting you will, too.
This movie about teens is for adults only.
First time writer/ director Estes brings sensitivity and insight to this tale of teens pushed to extremes and forced to confront their sense of responsibility and morality
example of everything that is good in American independent cinema
Follows a fluid narrative that never feels contrived, and leaves the audience with genuine sympathy for every single child involved.
Estes has a gift for radically shifting our sympathies at the drop of a hat, causing us to question what would, in a simpler film, be transparent
A mature, significant contribution to the unfornately growing trend of films that address teen violence (unfortunate in that we need the trend at all).
Mean Creek's cruelty is more understandable, troubling than Lord of the Flies
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