A rather disingenuous, manipulative Hallmark Hall of Shamer rooted in author Ethal Canin’s dark small town Wisconsin sensibilities. Thankfully, this film, which gets pretty heavy handed at times, does work to filter out some of the bleakness that generally accompanies such cinematic ventures into smalltown Americana. Oh, and don’t worry about that little kid shamed into committing suicide midway into the film because nobody else seemed to. Out of the gates, this film seems to be on shaky footing, something constituted by its weird jumpy opening segment - in each other’s company two men with nearly two decades worth of time between them, and nary a kind feeling, and a psychiatrist who doesn’t know that his five seconds of screen time will be his only. Even after an hour and twenty minutes of flashback, situating the meaty morsels of this histrionic soup, it never seems to find it’s way, or at least not convincingly. There’s this we’ve-come-so-far-for-so-very-little quality to it, a symptom of many made for television movies I’ve seen, that I simply couldn’t get my head around as the credits scrolled up the screen in front of my bleary, sleep-filled eyes. Taking its cue from “Stand by Me”, “Blue River” is a coming of age film that seems to be reaching for message and symbolism in every wink and nod (and set fire), but offers not much of anything in the overall, other than this notion that life sucks and people, at their core, are scum. I guess that’s kind of cool in an old-school “Black Flag” Damaged kind of way.

In the wee hours of the morning, a homeless drifter, Lawrence Sellars (Jerry O’Connell – looking positively freaky in his hippy make-up), arrives at the house of his younger, more successful brother, Edward (perennial movie bad boy, Neal McDonough). He’s looking for a place to crash and, curiously, some soap, but his little brother is hesitant, which isn’t that out of line considering that he hasn’t laid eyes on big bro in over fifteen years. A day after introducing him to his wife and child, Edward bribes big brother with clothes, money and a free ride to the nearest bus station. Apparently there’s a bus leaving and Edward wants Lawrence on it. To be sure, Edward follows the bus down the road just in case Lawrence chooses to prematurely de-board. I can only wonder what would have happened had Lawrence chosen to get off the bus. Would Edward have run him over with his car? Did I mention that Edward is a man of god or something? No? Well, he is.

As McDonough sits spilling emo-gut to his shrink, a grand, over-exposed flashback plays out. Take note of the fact that the psychiatrist (the sole black person on board) all but disappears from the film after this opening segment. Trying to give context to narration isn’t always necessary, especially when it goes nowhere. Anyways, the film hops backward to what appears to be, considering the sheer number of slacks and cardigans on display, the 1950s but it must have a bit later, and slowly advances to the present day situation as McDonough details the strange relationship he had with his older, more intelligent but inherently sociopathic brother, also played by Jerry O’Connell (minus the laughably bad fake beard and hair piece, thankfully). The backdrop is the sleepy town of Blue River, Wisconsin (in reality; Wilmington, North Carolina) – a bubbling place that holds deep dark secrets under those smiling faces of the townsfolk, namely that the Sellars’ family have become the brunt of hushed derogatory whispers ever since Eddie’s Pop skipped out on their mom (Susan Dey) a dozen years earlier with some hussy who was, at one time, a friend of the family. In his wake, his estranged young son, played by O’Connell, has seemingly rebelled against… well, everything, including and especially his mother’s sudden unearthing of God (she’s a Christian fundamentalist), choosing instead to toil with less haughty people at alcohol and sex-fuelled parties. Lawrence is an existentialist in every sense of the word, extolling the virtues of science over religion and the ingrained notion that family comes first. Everything else, including God, be damned. "Art is abstract" and therefore worthless, while "science is predictable," making it something of value. He also believes that he is his father’s child, and by that rationale, since he believes his father to be worthless, he also believes himself to be worthless.

Nick Stahl plays the young and ingenuous Edward, who treats his brother, the only father figure in his life, with the same brand of open-mouthed respect one might bestow on a dad. This doesn’t bode well when he suddenly becomes aware of the fact that Lawrence has a penchant for being bad. And when I say bad, I mean ‘fucking-a-paraplegic-girl-simply-to-piss-off-her-dad’ bad. In fact, in my opinion, Lawrence straddles a fine line between being a troubled youngster and a full-fledged sociopath. How thin this line truly is becomes agonizingly clear when Edward’s mother is screwed and then kicked-loose by the town’s self-righteous school principal, Henry Howland (Sam Elliot) – the singular moral equivalent of the town elders in “Footloose”. This sets Lawrence off like an illegal Class 7 firecracker. Lawrence takes this humiliation of his mother very personally and methodically engineers a plan of revenge that is as genius as it is evil. Before it is all over, Howland will have nearly everything of material taken from him, as well as his own daughter’s virginity, and O’Connell himself will be cast out indefinitely – the Biblical prodigal son, squandering his brilliance and proclivity for science, for a life without meaning, or whatever that thing is that constitutes meaning. For Edward, his brother’s scheming and the suicide of a friend ("The Sandlot" star Patrick Renna), the result of his own big mouth, will awaken something deep within him, namely that the world is a big pile of steaming shit and nobody, not even family members, are to be trusted. The final frame, the reconciliation, arriving like a needle in the eye, is about as fake and exaggerated as O’Connell’s scuzzy beard. The fact that Edward chooses to forgive his brother doesn’t change the fact that Lawrence is still a scumbag.

Jerry O’Connell (yeah, the fat kid from “Stand By Me” who evolved into some super-stud Teen Beat cover star in the late 90s) is surprisingly good playing a guy with some serious anti-social behavioural issues. In a few scenes, O’Connell seems completely gone, replaced by a wild-eyed lunatic help bent on destroying everyone and everything around him. He’s lying, manipulative and cruel, and it’s interesting that for some portion of the film, he provides the moral counter to Sam Elliott’s holier than thou man-of-god character. In the end, they are both contemptible human beings, and director Larry Elikann makes no bones about it. Dog eat dog, baby. The atheist and the believer. Whatever role faith plays in a person’s life, it is their own, and people should not be generalized by their adherence to such faith, or at least the serious vibe I was getting from this flick. Nick Stahl, the guy who leap-frogged Edward Furlong for the role of John Conners in “Termator 3: Rise of the Machines”, isn’t as endearing as other such characters in these coming-of-agers I’ve seen, but he does the job. He looks sad and bewildered when he has to, and that’s all one can ask for. His best scenes are of course opposite O’Connell, with one specific scene standing out as rather charming. It involves the pair sprawled out on a bed after a rather heated argument. Having spent a good portion of the film looking upon their sister Darienne’s (Jean Marie Barnwell) flute playing with a sort of bizarre indifference, they suddenly overhear it amid their heated words, arriving like a sweet melody… and it soothes them. “She’s playing with her heart, now,” Lawrence quietly mutters. What a great great moment!

On the whole, not really my cup of tea but I’m sure somebody somewhere will love it.

Click this link to see more images from "Blue River"