Lost Classics: River’s Edge

“He was my effin’ friend maan.” River’s Edge [IMDb] is a modest, compact sort of film by a director who seemed to have peaked early and then spent the rest of his days stuck in a televisual limbo land, dipping in and out of hit series such as Twin Peaks, CSI, Deadwood, Dexter and most recently directing a whole bunch of of Mad Men episodes. It is this quiet, methodical approach that gives this story of teenage life in backwater USA it’s unexpected kick. It also contains some of the best performances in recent times (well mid 90s) from Keanu Reeves, further fleshing out his trademark ‘like totally dude’ persona by adding the thin veneer of emotional depth the story requires; Crispin Glover doing a suitably bonkers turn as bogan stoner dude with a cause, whose every utterance seems to provoke mayhem and Dennis Hopper, who has probably never been as good since getting to play Feck, future ghost to the film’s protagonist. The protagonist being a particularly disaffected youth known as John who kills his girlfriend and leaves her on said River’s Edge in order to show his friends how completely disaffected he really is. It’s rare, these days, that a film will allow almost every character within it to be fleshed out so well. It’s strange that a film, supposedly about how shallow modern teenagers can be when facing extreme circumstances turned out to be have such depth.