Once again employing non-professionals in lead roles, Gus Van Sant returns to the territory of disaffected youth as seen in the more political Elephant, and infuses it with the easy charm of his earlier work like Drugstore Cowboy. Teenaged skateboarder Alex is at the center of the story. After accidentally causing the death of a security guard, his world becomes at once more complicated and confusing. Alex is utterly alone in his ordeal, feeling distanced from his best friend and girlfriend, and with neither mother or father to turn to for advice. Paranoid Park is the cinematic version of stream of consciousness prose, with fluid, impressionistic photography by Wong Kar-wai collaborator Christopher Doyle. A reflective and disjointed psychological examination of the high school world that is one of Van Sant’s best in recent years.