The raw genius in The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys lies in its linkage between the exploding desires of two eighth-grade Catholic school boys and the rampaging excesses of their fantasy lives.
Kieran Culkin plays the volatile character of Tim, a sort of intro-extrovert. He leads a small gang of misfits against the dreaded disciplinarian Sister Assumpta (Jodie Foster). Emile Hirsch plays Francis, his best friend and the guiding artist behind the group's comic-book burlesques and superhero extravaganzas, which paint the universe in Us-vs.-Them terms.
In the movie's delirious high points, their kicky phantasmagorias carom onto the screen in flamboyant animated sequences. These bursts of visual invention, cut into live action without wimpy dissolves or narration, extend and enhance Francis' comic books. These cartoon episodes are a hair-raising, heart-rending expression of the lead boys' innermost longings. Francis' artistic intuition leaps ahead of his conscious judgment: long before he can articulate or act on his insights, Francis perceives that the vendettas Tim plans against Sister Assumpta may lead to madness and death.
Culkin and Hirsch are achingly acute. So is Jena Malone as Margie, the haunted young beauty who casts a spell on Francis and rouses the jealousy of Tim when he sees his friend growing close to her.
In the late Chris Fuhrman's source novel, Francis feels "Something in her life was more important, more terrible, than anything in mine." His instinct turns out to be true. Malone is sensitive, almost eerie, and director Peter Care charts Margie's effect on the two boys like a seismographer of emotions, capturing the tiniest temblor as it registers in an awkward gesture or a clouded face.
But the artist who does the most to vitalize the material is comic-book legend Todd McFarlane (best known for Spawn), a master of expressive hyperbole. In Francis' vision, as brought to the screen by McFarlane, Margie becomes "Sorcerella," both a sword-wielding adventuress and damsel in distress. She leads Francis' alter ego - a thorny giant human fern called "Bracken" - to the heart of a maze and holds the key to his escape.
Tim suggests that, as a superhero, he should be "Skeleton Boy": He wants to be all bone, irreducible and unkillable. The film's spine is his wrong-way odyssey from original, improvisatory high-jinks to self-destruction. In the most heartbreaking scene, he and Francis chance on a dog fatally injured in a hit-and-run. Tim, too, is a wounded animal that no one is able to save. He sums up the promise and the waste of freewheeling youth.
Foster is strident, Vincent D'Onofrio has little to do but chain-smoke thoughtfully as an accessible priest, and the physical atmosphere is hazy.
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys has nothing to do with recent scandals in the Roman Catholic church; it has everything to do with the vulnerability of 14-year-olds and their capacity for creative transcendence and psychological extremism. Like William Blake's tyger, and Tim, this movie keeps burning bright.
Lives of Altar Boys
Starring Kieran Culkin, Emile Hirsch, Jena Malone, Jodie Foster and Vincent D'Onofrio
Directed by Peter Care
Rated R (language, sexual content, youth substance abuse)
Released by THINKFilm
Running time 104 minutes
Sun score: ***