Mean Creek Reviews
Top Critic
Estes' dark sunlit tale cuts like a knife.
| Original Score: 3/4
A low-key, low-budget thriller that reminds us just how cruel young people can be.
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| Original Score: 4/5
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.
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| Original Score: 3.5/5
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.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
Estes has accomplished quite a bit here. In addition to providing a textbook example of suspense, he also makes us want to know what happens to these kids after the screen goes dark.
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| Original Score: 3/4
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.
| Original Score: B+
In its simple portrait of a bully Mean Creek may be one of the most political and socially conscious films of the year.
| Original Score: B
As odd as it may sound, the best of the many good things that can be said of writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes' debut feature Mean Creek is that it could have been written by a teenager.
| Original Score: 3/4
There are all sorts of other themes at work below the surface, including examinations of teenage peer pressure and moral responsibility.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Estes dives into this material as if it's never been done before, and his characters and situations are so realistic and the film's tone is so assured that he succeeds at making it feel fresh.
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| Original Score: 3/4
An unusually truthful depiction of the way kids today talk, think and act.
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| Original Score: B+
Very much its own picture -- and a damn sight better one than Stand by Me.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Takes its place alongside Stand by Me and River's Edge as one of very few films to accurately portray the experience of growing up male.
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| Original Score: 4/4
Estes has an uncanny knack for creating character, and for finding the kind of throwaway detail that resonates.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Yet another small gem from the strong Sundance class of 2004, Mean Creek mines credible drama from teenage revenge fantasies.
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| Original Score: 3/5
That rare movie that manages to be not only an adroit, carefully observed study in character and suspense, but important.
A thoughtful, unpretentious coming-of-age drama with uncommon emotional heft and an engaging young cast.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
Never preachy, never sanctimonious nor touchy-feely, Mean Creek looks at what a social worker would likely call the roots and the legacy of abuse.
It could have been simple-minded and predictable, but it becomes a rare film about moral choices, about the difficulty of standing up against pressure from your crowd.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Through the vast land mass of the teen movie, Mean Creek flows with intelligent purpose and thematic passion, at least until it doesn't.
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| Original Score: 3/4
One of the year's very best independents.
| Original Score: 3.5/4
It's a dynamic debut for first-time writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes and a provocative showcase for a gifted young cast.
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| Original Score: A-
Such a simple plot barely fills the film's 87 minutes, but writer/director Jacob Aaron Estes more than compensates with his labyrinth of moral dilemmas and complex characters.
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| Original Score: 3/4
A welcome departure from typical movies about teens.
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| Original Score: 3/4
Has a level of moral and psychological intricacy that is rare in high school fables.
Estes and his cinematographer, Sharone Meir, present a vision of paradise and innocence lost in this beautifully understated drama.
| Original Score: 3/4
Jacob Aaron Estes's debut film, about an adolescent prank gone wrong, is like an unusually sensitive and well-acted afterschool special.
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| Original Score: 3/5
It doesn't pander to or indulge its characters like the teen films we're used to. It looks at them straight ahead and with respect. It's something you wish Hollywood, and even parents, did more often.
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| Original Score: 4.5/5
Estes has provided a keenly-honed view of human psychology.
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| Original Score: 3.5/4
While Estes' tale is unfolding, very little seems anything but natural, plausible and emotionally scrupulous.
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| Original Score: 3/4
A fairly ordinary, machine-shopped Sundance résumé indie, seemingly balanced somewhere between half-realized ambition and inexperience.
There is something precociously mature but natural about the work of this youngest Culkin sibling that stands apart.
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| Original Score: A-
Estes' debut feature's strength lies in its crackling intensity, ultra-sharp character insights and an affinity for teenage protagonists who look and sound like real teens.
Estes has crafted a realistic and rich portrait of the moral dilemmas that adolescents experience.
