Confused/sensual

>> The teen romance crazy/beautiful is a mixed bag

by MATTHEW HAYS

It is odd to have such mixed feelings about one movie. crazy/beautiful looks good within its genre, the teen romance, in large part because the vast majority of the rest of the movies within this category are such utter crap.

It is beautifully shot, the sexy bodies of Kirsten Dunst and Jay Hernandez captured in great detail by the camera. Dunst is a rather reckless young rebel, a gal with spunk who drinks too much, hangs out with her naughty buddies and generally tests the authorities at her high school. Hernandez, meanwhile, is the upright, straight-A -scoring Latino, a fellow so intent on bettering himself that he commutes several hours a day to go to a better school.

The two meet and, true to the genre, fall head over heels for one another. Again true to this sort of film, opposites appear to attract, with Hernandez a bit overwhelmed by Dunst's bad-girl antics. The film deserves great praise for its treatment of interracial dating. There is a good deal of sensitivity in the depiction of the two dealing with attitudes and prejudices from their mates' communities. Dunst is fine in a scene where she attends a party in Hernandez's house, his family and friends shunning her. Hernandez, meanwhile, attempts to impress upon Dunst that he has ambitions that he intends to strive for. She has landed in a good school by birthright; he, Hernandez reminds her, has had to fight for everything he's gotten thus far. Their bond is made quite believable by the strength of the two young actors. Dunst plays adolescent confusion with an awe-inspiring accuracy, while Hernandez is the boy virtually anyone could fall for. And it's been said, but is worth repeating again: it's about bloody time Hollywood started creating more roles like this for Latinos. They remain woefully underrepresented on the big screen.

crazy/beautiful suffers in the part of the film that corresponds to the "crazy" part of the title. Dunst has severe issues with her father (played as a white liberal congressman to the hilt by Bruce Davison), and this psychodrama unfolds, not terribly subtly, throughout the movie. (Memo to screenwriters Phil Hay and Matt Manfredi: yes, some of your one-liners are winning, but those alone cannot create dimension in a screenplay.) The characterization of Dunst's stepmother, sadly, deals the film another blow; she's simply far too one-dimensional as an evil step-parent from Hell.

So uneven is the quality of the bits and pieces of this film, it's most easy to believe that old conspiracy theory about some studio hands intervening and messing things up. Dunst and Hernandez are solid, and the handling of their bond is laudable. Unfortunately, the film's soggy, highly unrealistic conclusion undoes too much of crazy/beautiful's charm.

crazy/beautiful opens Friday, June 29