by Stephen Garrett

Mostly balmy weather in the Wasatch mountains has given way to mostly tepid dramatic competition selections at the beginning of this year’s Sundance Film Festival. No breakout movie has yet to emerge from the line-up: the fare has been engaging in fits and starts, with admirable aspects and worthy intentions giving way to executions that solidly fall short of greatness. Two films that come closest, though, are both set in high school, and both mix their laughs with a satisfyingly dark undercurrent—but both also demand that the viewer buy into their very stylized conceits.

[A scene from Rian Johnson's "Brick." Photo courtesy 2005 Sundance Film Festival.]

The more consistently witty and visually inventive of the pair is ”Brick,” writer-director Rian Johnson’s wry and often hilarious updating of hard-boiled film noir conventions in the guise of a peer-pressure teen flick. Brendan Fry plays the too-cool-for-school loner whose ex-girlfriend’s frantic call for help leads to her murder and his subsequent under-the-radar investigation of the crime. At the center of it all is a gimpy mastermind named Pin (a brilliantly deadpan Lukas Haas), whose heroin business is run out of his wood-paneled rec-room basement. Johnson makes an inspired connection between the nihilistic-romantic despair of ‘40s detective stories and suburban adolescent ennui, retaining the dense plot machinations of his forebearers and meshing pulp jargon with teenspeak in a manner that’s eerily fluid. He also shows a flair for composition, having cinematographer Steve Yedlin contribute a lush visual eye to the director’s richly storyboarded sequences. But the success of the film hinges solely on the audience’s acceptance of this very arch conceit—though those who buy into this universe will be amply rewarded.

Much more conventional in its laughs is the “Heathers”-flavored Pretty Persuasion. Marcos Siegas’ wicked post-P.C. farce stars Evan Rachel Wood as an unloved but off-the-charts brainy rich bitch who wreaks havoc in her posh Beverly Hills high school when she convinces two other classmates to join her in accusing their English teacher of rape. The femme fatale cautionary tale mixes broad satire with surprising moments of pathos, and aims to be a savvy commentary on amorality in the media, the empty nature of celebrity and the corrosive effects of bad parenting. But certain situations, jokes and dialogue are so over-the-top or shock-driven—despite their hilarity—that they feel forced to the point of distraction from the film’s otherwise keen insights, and threaten to overwhelm the more sober moments. Still, Skander Halim’s pitch-black script (and James Woods’ scenery-chewing turn as Wood’s self-absorbed father) keeps the film’s comic pace fast and furious.

The rest of the movies vying for the festival’s top prize so far have been much less artificial in their narrative worlds—a respite for those seeking more mature dramas about average adults muddling through their lives. But with thin premises and underwhelming goals, they’re also low-key to the point of being anemic.

The most accomplished of the bunch is Forty Shades of Blue, a beautifully directed movie from Ira Sachs which depicts the inner turmoil of a young Russian woman named Laura (Dina Korzun) who lives in Memphis with and has a child by Alan (Rip Torn), a legendary—and legendarily philandering—music producer (Rip Torn). Tensions rise when Laura falls in love with Alan’s son, but never in the film does their attraction feel intense or epic enough to give the star-crossed lovers’ outcome any urgency. It’s the Achilles heel of an emotional study of isolation that is otherwise impeccably acted (especially the bearish performance by larger-than-life Torn).

In his third turn as director, indie icon Steve Buscemi delivers a sweet but painfully modest portrait of Midwest despair with Lonesome Jim, in which self-professed failure Casey Affleck returns home to a family who he considers a bunch of losers. The navel-gazing depression is leavened by Liv Tyler’s role as his love interest (although her attraction to him is arguably another form of self-loathing), and the cast (including Mary Kay Place and Seymour Cassel) do find the humor in the script’s portrayal of their sad-sack lives. But the ultimate message—that life isn’t about winning, but staying in the game—is disappointingly obvious.

Writer-director Tim Kirkman’s North Carolina motherhood drama Loggerheads, a bittersweet look at the instinct to find one’s home and family amid the visceral pain of adoption, takes its view through a number of interconnected storylines that overextend the dramatic power of the premise and dilute its cumulative power. And Ellie Parker, Scott Coffey’s tragicomic look at the jaded life of the titular hopeful Hollywood starlet (Naomi Watts), nimbly passes through many of the genre’s clichés to find new, untapped experiences that keep the narrative fresh. But the episodic structure (the feature originated as a series of short films) and the somewhat amateurish direction (not to mention a singularly ugly DV aesthetic) makes the no-budget result feel long and overextended.

Outside of the competition, buzz is building for a handful of movies, including David LaChappelle’s uplifting anthropological documentary Rize. The fashion-photographer-cum-music-video-director has crafted an invigorating chronicle of a West Coast alternative hip-hop dance scene as defined by “Krumping,” a lightning-fast body seizure that’s at turns violent, poetic, anarchic and inspiring. Electrifying dance moves and showdowns (the largest of which, the Battle Zone, is a sports-arena extravaganza) are all cultural expression of anger, frustration and fuck-it-all joy unique to the dead-end cycle of poverty that has defined South Central L.A. for decades. Standing ovations have greeted the film and its young stars, who seem equally elated and bewildered by the fact that they’re in the elite ski peaks of Utah—a delicious juxtaposition that is the very essence of Sundance at its best.

[EDITORS NOTE: After filing this article, indieWIRE writer Stephen Garrett called to let us know that he watched Craig Brewer's "Hustle & Flow." He calls it one of the best films of the festival. It will be included in Wednesday's column.]