Michael Cuesta's Wise Kids By David D'Arcy April 5, 2006 - 2:15 PM PDT "A story about innocence lost always grabs me." In Michael Cuesta's emotionally savvy Twelve and Holding, a protected leafy world cracks open as one of two twins in a suburban town is killed when two bullies firebomb the twins' treehouse. It's trouble in paradise once again for Cuesta, whose previous film, L.I.E. (2001), looked at adolescence through the eyes of a Long Island boy whose lonely life changes when he is befriended by Big John, a charming pedophile. Cuesta made sure you felt the humanity in that predator - to the point that this very humanity becomes the most sinister of his attributes, since it's what draws you in. Cuesta also has a feel for the troubled innocence of childhood, and the performances that he gets out of three 12-year-olds in Twelve and Holding show once again that he is a gifted director of actors. Jacob is the surviving twin (played by Conor Donovan, who also plays his murdered brother) who wages a battle for revenge on the boys who are jailed for the "accident." He's born with a birthmark, and spends much of the film in a hockey mask - an obvious prop for childhood insecurity, but in a film by Michael Cuesta, the obvious things always end up being much darker. Leonard (Jesse Camacho) is a fat child of fat parents who almost dies in a fall from the treehouse ladder when it's bombed. He then decides to change his family's weighty destiny with the best interests in mind, and some unintended consequences. Malee (Zoe Weizenbaum) is a cute Chinese-American, the adopted daughter of an aloof psychotherapist and an absent father, who finds her true love, a construction worker patient of her mother, just as she is experiencing her first sexual awakenings. Cuesta weaves the strands of these stories together deftly with an ending that reminds you how dark life can be at that age. This is a film that kids and parents should see together. I spoke to Michael Cuesta before the first screening of Twelve and Holding at the New Directors/New Films series in New York. Is this based on a true story or a group of true stories? No. I did not write this. The writer, Anthony Cipriano, brought me the script and we did some work on it. It was very much informed by his childhood, with a mixture of a little bit of horror movie in there. I guess I just love stories about kids that are about kids, but tell the real story? Rather than making the movies about kids for kids, this movie is for kids, but maybe adults as well. You know, growing up, Channel Five in New York used to have that segment, "Do you know where your children are?" There are certain things that are always recurring, that are going to work for me. A story about innocence lost always grabs me. In your hands, the notion of innocence is complicated. There's a lot that's inside your characters that I wouldn't call innocent. These kids are almost like characters from the Brothers Grimm. There's reflection and deliberation within the characters that makes you want to follow them. An adult can see himself in these kids. For me, I don't know. I react to things instinctually. Now I've made two films - crossing the bridge into adolescence here and struggling through adolescence in L.I.E. There's a need to connect among kids, a feeling that you're the outcast. Being young, you don't know where you fit in, and your self-esteem is low. It may be about that. Was it written in the script that Jacob has a birthmark? What's the point of that? The obvious is that he's the flawed twin. He's lived in the shadow of his brother, and now he has to step into his shoes. That clearly is the obvious, and that's what worked in the script dramatically so well. He's always been the weaker one, and that's been a constant reminder to him. It marked him in a way. It worked visually, too, which was interesting. Why did he also wear the hockey mask? It was him being insecure, trying to cover up, like any teenager trying to cover up your zits. It's amazing that, the more you look at kids, what you see are kids trying to fit in, not trying to be themselves. It's about the need to find your place. When you become an adult, and you've already done that, then you can drop out. So few do. Well, I have. I went to a therapist, and she asked me, "Why are you drawn to all this dark stuff?" I told her that I never saw it as dark. What is it about kids that make them interesting to you as a subject? For one thing, they're so impressionable and there are so many places where you can take them in a story. What I love about Twelve and Holding is that these kids are acting like adults. Was there any particular reason why you set this film, like L.I.E., in the suburbs? Not really. It was more practical than anything. In L.I.E. it made sense for the story. We shot Twelve and Holding in Rochelle Park, New Jersey, about twelve miles out of the city, near the Paramus Mall. When I was watching it, I kept looking and wondering where the Long Island locations were. It's funny. Everybody's writing about it as a film about Long Island. I don't know where they got that idea. What sucks about the independent film world is that you rely so much on reviews. Part of the theme in Twelve and Holding is how kids impart their wisdom to us. It happened the other night. My kid did that the other night. I found a bad review of the film. I think it was on the Internet. He just turned eleven. He should have been in the film. He was. He got cut. Don't go there. About the review, he said to me, "Who cares what these guys think? You're the artist, you make the film, and then you move on to the next thing." He said it, it was incredibly wise, and I thought to myself, "There's a Twelve and Holding moment." Do you like the films of Todd Solondz? I do. I'm a little over them. I find that the tone, I'm a little bored with it now. I loved Happiness, and I think after that, it became a little repetitive. Someone once described me as Todd Solondz-Lite, and I thought that the difference was that my films are just a little more realistic, and not so much satire. I'm not so icked out by children navigating their budding sexuality. Given the tabloid horror that the conveyor belt of horror/entertainment gives us in the news, people pre-empt their own judgments of what is beautiful or can be beautiful. Look at the whole Amber Alert child abduction craze right now. Thank God that there is the awareness - believe me, I have children - but it does go a little too far. Every guy in the street driving a car is a pedophile, you know. The milk carton manufacturers can't keep up with all the missing children. next >>> Index "A story about innocence lost always grabs me." "The monster becoming a human. I just think that's endlessly fascinating." back to articles

David D'Arcy Besides reviewing art and film for National Public Radio, David D'Arcy has also written for the Art Newspaper, the Economist and other publications. February 6, 2007. Mark Savage & the D.I.Y. Aesthetic by Jeffrey M. Anderson February 3, 2007. Seeing the Humor in Sexual Identity by Michael Guillen January 29, 2007. Smokin' Aces with Joe Carnahan and Jeremy Piven by Sean Axmaker January 26, 2007. Include Me Out: Interview with Farley Granger by Jonathan Marlow January 25, 2007. Grindhouse: Chapter Four - The 1960's by Eddie Muller January 19, 2007. Charles Mudede: Zoo Story by Andy Spletzer January 19, 2007. Mark Becker: Merging the Personal and the Political by Sara Schieron January 19, 2007. Micha X. Peled: The Lives of the Sweatshop Youth by Hannah Eaves January 16, 2007. Djinn: A Taxi Driver Dreams of Perth by Jeffrey M. Anderson January 12, 2007. Clint Eastwood: Flags and Letters From the "Good War" by Jeff Shannon view past articles