TWELVE AND HOLDING Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
IFC Films
Grade: B+
Directed by: Michael Cuesta
Written by: Anthony S. Cipriano
Cast: Conor Donovan, Jesse Camacho, Zoe Weizenbaum,
Linus Roache, Annabella Sciorra
Screened at: Broadway, NYC, 3/23/06
Opens: March 31, 2006 If you’ve seen director Michael Cuesta’s 2001 film “L.I.E.” you’ll note a similar style between that and his current pic. “L.I.E” is a mood piece about an upper-middle class 15-year-old boy who lives near the Long Island Expressway. With a dead mother and an absent father, he’s lost and becomes prey for Big John, a pederast. By comparison, the characters who inhabit “Twelve and Holding” are suburbanites, at least one of whom is a psychiatrist while another is a construction worker–thus we see a town with both working class guys and professionals. The kids on Cuesta’s palette are twelve-year-olds going on thirty-two: that’s how mature they sound–or maybe in these times of exposure to sex-and-violence drenched media, they’ve all grown up too fast. Lives are changed for a small circle of these youngsters, their parents, and one substitute-father after an involuntary killing of one boy leads to thoughts of vengeance. In fact one of the acts of vengeance takes place because a kid approaching his teens takes his mother’s expression of hate too literally. All this makes scripter Anthony S. Cipriano’s story a riveting one, all the more gripping thanks to the crackerjack job by an ensemble of young people cast perfectly under Cuesta’s watch. One of the three young principals playing the roles of twin brothers Jacob and Rudy Carges (Conor Donovan) frequently wears a hockey mask: Jacob was born with a birthmark that covers half his face, making him vulnerable and picked on by bullies. After Rudy and Jacob, situated in their tree house, overturn a pail full of urine on the heads of two of these bullies, the toughs swear out a vendetta. A fire started in the tree house by the two victims of a urine soak days later results in Rudy’s inadvertent death and causes a serious injury to his obese Leonard (Jesse Camacho). The grieving families include Rudy’s parents, Jim Carges (Linus Roache) and Ashley (Jayne Atkinson) and also Leonard’s obese parents, Grace (Marcia Debonis) and Patrick (Tom McGowan). A good friend of Rudy, Jacob and Leonard, Malee Chuang (Zoe Weizenbaum), mourns for the victim but also for herself. Though her mother is an understanding psychotherapist, Carla Chuang (Annabella Sciorra), Malee’s father is absent, causing the young girl, now beginning to become sexually aware, to look to construction worker Gus Maitland (Jeremy Renner) as a father figure. Director Cuesta cuts frequently from one youngster to another, evoking some humor from Leonard’s efforts to lose weight in order to be eligible to play the position of football center when he begins high school. He jogs, he eats only apples and salads, and in one scene locks his obese mother in a room feeding her only apples and salads as well for several days. Members of the audience who tend to think that all 12-year-olds are alike will be pleased to see individual differences among kids who are friends living in the same suburban tract. Each has his or her own demons to conquer just as the grieving parents are overcome by tragedy. “Twelve and Holding” is yet another instance showing that pictures on a tight budget can readily be more absorbing than Hollywood blockbusters. Not Yet Rated. 94 minutes 2006 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online | 
