Young actors mine deep emotions in 'Twelve and Holding'

In the indie-film subgenre designed to give parents sleepless nights, there's a fine line between frankness and exploitation. How do you portray the scary challenges faced by today's kids without turning your movie into "Kids"?

IFC Films '12 and Holding' 3 out of 5 stars Director: Michael Cuesta Starring: Jeremy Renner, Linus Roache, Annabella Sciorra, Jayne Atkinson, Tom McGowan Run time: 94 minutes Release date: May 19, 2006 Rating: R for some violence and sexual content involving minors, and for language. Meet the director Is Michael Cuesta drawn to the dark side? On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate '12 and Holding'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

For "Twelve and Holding," the answer is to treat child actors with enormous respect — to give them room to bring their own personalities to bear on a script's plot points. "Twelve" isn't perfect, but its protagonists are moving characters worth getting to know.

They're a quartet of best friends whose alpha male dies in the film's opening scenes. Rudy is killed accidentally by kids who only intended to burn down his treehouse. His twin brother, Jacob, used to residing in Rudy's shadow, is forced to reinvent himself. Jacob's friends Leonard and Malee face their own changes. Each is pulled away from the gang toward private quests, some of which are healthier than others.

Jacob has an unsettling habit of wearing a hockey goalie's mask to hide a birthmark that covers half his face. The script acknowledges this allusion to the "Friday the 13th" series, and often seems to be setting its protagonists up for appropriately nasty fates. These aren't the up-to-the-moment threats you expect from this sort of film (Internet pedophiles, AIDS, PlayStation-induced thumb injury), but more universal perils.

What does seem period-specific is the film's attitude toward the children's parents. These mothers and fathers aren't simply ineffectual, à la "Rebel Without a Cause"; they're pathologized in a way that feels nastily contemporary.

Leonard's parents in particular are treated like refugees from some other movie, a broad satire about our fast-food nation. They are an obese couple intent on fattening their calves, given to thoroughly unbelievable behavior. At one point, Leonard suffers an accident and is hospitalized. In the waiting room, his father can't put down a basket of french fries long enough to converse with the doctor.

Meanwhile, Malee's single mother is a therapist who sees everyone's problems but her daughter's. Jacob's mom, driven crazy by the court's response to her other son's accidental killing, is on the verge of a Charles Bronson episode. Eventually, Jacob internalizes that thirst for vengeance, and Malee reaches out for human contact by fixating on one of her mom's patients.

It's possible (however dispiriting) to see these horror-show parents not as examples of shallow-minded dramatization but as a faithful representation of how the children see them. That excuse isn't entirely satisfying, though. To the credit of the young actors, these kids seem a little deeper and more thoughtful than the movie depicting their world.