Written and directed by Matthew Ryan Hoge

Starring Ryan Gosling, Chris Klein, Kevin Spacey

What makes someone kill? As writer-director Matthew Ryan Hoge sees it, sometimes there is no explanation for actions that seem utterly senseless. Like the upcoming, ingeniously conceived Zero Day, Hoge’s impressive but downbeat The United States of Leland non-judgmentally probes the underbelly of suburbia: land of creature comforts, emotionally disconnected families and alienated teens.

“They want a reason,” says Leland Fitzgerald (The Believer’s Ryan Gosling, his hair dyed jet black), a troubled high school student (he seems almost emotionally disturbed, yet it’s never commented on) who, we learn, has killed a retarded boy and is being pressed to account for it. His violent act has nothing to do with exposure to “TV or movies, or some girl,” he tells us, as if in a trance. Even he doesn’t know what compelled him to stab his victim. “When I say I don’t remember that day, I’m not lying.”

Quickly apprehended and taken to juvenile hall, Leland finds himself in a classroom taught by Pearl (Don Cheadle), a caring but frustrated teacher who would rather be working on his long-in-progress novel than trying to interest punk criminals in learning. (Hoge himself spent two years in the L.A. juvenile hall system.) When Pearl discovers that Leland is the son of Albert T. Fitzgerald (Kevin Spacey, who co-produced), an alcoholic, misogynist author (“America is Too Loud”), he smells a book — maybe the one he has been trying to write for three years.

Pearl at long last finds his muse and begins churning out pages — Leland is not only surprisingly aware of the world, but quite the philosopher (“Why do people only say ‘I’m only human’ after they’ve done something bad?”). His next step is to befriend Albert, who instantly sizes him up as a hungry aspiring writer (“Fiction or non?” he asks dryly when Pearl approaches him) and tells him in no uncertain terms to fuck off (something Spacey excels at). He may not have seen Leland since he was six, but he isn’t going to let a third-rate hack exploit his son. Now Pearl is on his own — but, then again, so is every character in the film.

Hoge’s American feature debut has much to recommend it — smart dialogue, a fine cast (Gosling is one of the most talented young actors working today) and an understanding of human suffering that makes its self-consciousness largely forgivable. It is a long haul at times, however, due to its slow pacing and overbearing darkness. (Don’t walk in depressed, whatever you do.) You’ll have to have a great deal of patience if you choose to see The United States of Leland — Hoge also has a tendency to intercut too much, as well as to throw in an overabundance of characters and plot asides – but there’s a payoff. In a world gone mad, who can’t relate to Leland’s profound melancholia? (Hillcrest Cinemas)

**1/2

Presented by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt

Like offbeat animation? Got 94 minutes to spare? Then it could be that The Animation Show — the first “animation festival with the artists themselves at the helm” — is for you, depending on your taste level, that is. (In other words, this ain’t the land of Finding Nemo.)

As programmed by friends and fellow animators Mike Judge (“Beavis and Butt-head”, “King of the Hill”) and Don Hertzfeldt, this is a collection of shorts from eight countries, including the Tim Burton classic Vincent (narrated by the irreplaceable Vincent Price), and an excerpt from the late, great Disney animator Ward Kimball’s rarely seen 1957 Mars and Beyond, narrated by the one and only Paul Frees. (Of course, because this international expo “of the world’s greatest animation” is connected to Judge and Hertzfeldt, we have to suffer through stupid 1990 pencil tests by Judge and several silly TV commercials and promos Hertzfeldt made for the Family Learning Channel — all included in the 2001 Oscar-nominated, aptly titled, Rejected but never before seen in the U.S.) There’s CG, Claymation, hand-drawn segments — just about everything an animation buff could ask for (except, unfortunately, consistent quality – the problem with all shorts programs, it seems).

There is some funny, offbeat stuff here (and some equally forgettable, overextended material). Even when the scripts are poor or tasteless (since when are bleeding anuses funny?) or lacking a coherent point, you’ll be able to appreciate the imagination and artistry that went into making these shorts.

Highlights include the clever Canadian opener, Cordell Barker’s Strange Invaders, about an alien baby who causes massive destruction; Koji Yamamura’s Mt. Head, the story of a stingy man who sprouts a tree on his head (just one of several shorts about deadly creeping roots, curiously enough); Hertfeldt’s surreal 1998 Billy’s Balloon (have you heard the one about the attacking balloons?); the aforementioned Vincent and Mars and Beyond; Bill Plympton’s Parking, a look at a parking attendant who can’t rid his new lot of a mischievous blade of grass; and the handsomely made, CG-heavy The Cathedral (2002), concerning a space traveler who wanders into a sort of planetary Venus fly-trap.

While The Animation Show is terribly uneven (and isn’t sequenced very well — we want the show to be over long before it actually is), any program that promotes international animation is a good thing. Here’s hoping the next installment will be better. (Ken Cinema, one week only, April 16-22)

Kyle Counts is the film critic for the Gay & Lesbian Times.