Prey to Pretense

As a self-consciously literary film, The United States of Leland favors a few repeating catch phrases, notions it encourages us to consider alongside the questions it poses. One of these phrases is "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts"; another is "Everything is going to be okay." It's tempting to invite the film to listen to its own dogma; to create, first of all, a work that is more than a puzzle of interlocking pieces that all say essentially the same thing, and that rises to something rather than hammering itself into the ground; and, after that, to take a break from the relentless, desperate exertion that makes the film a chore to watch. In short, things really are going to be okay. There's just no need to try so hard.

By the end of the story, nearly every character has acknowledged that he or she has made mistakes; the movie, by implication, asks us to forgive. But it's hard to forgive people you neither know nor like, just as it's difficult to forgive the film for failing to trust its audience.