Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #250: Mean Creek (2004).

Teenage Sam (Rory Culkin) tells his older brother Rocky (Trevor Morgan) that he's having trouble at school with the resident bully, the overweight and privately troubled George (Josh Peck). After Rocky then tells his friends Clyde (Ryan Kelley) and Marty (Scott Mechlowicz), they hatch a plan to stage a party for Sam's (fictional) birthday and to invite George, take him on a boating trip and then make him strip in a game of truth or dare, dump him in the river and then leave him to run home naked. George very gullibly accepts the invitation and then once the trip gets underway, some of the guys, as well as Sam's friend Millie (Carly Schroeder), who's reluctantly joined them, develop second thoughts upon realising George is just very lonely and eager for acceptance. However, the others, especially Marty, maintain their original feelings about George and insist on pressing on with the plan.

Writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes' feature debut Mean Creek is a mature, realistic and haunting cautionary tale about adolescent bullying, how it begins and, particularly, how not to combat it. Estes here demonstrates a rich but delicate cinematographic exposition of the natural locations the characters trek through and more importantly a lucid tracking of the group's dynamics and how they all remain distinctive yet intertwined. What's especially interesting is how two of them trade one narrative role, although for spoiler reasons I won't specify who.

Estes also gets very effective and natural turns out of his young cast, particularly Peck and Schroeder, and wisely resists using pop hits on the soundtrack, for a more timeless feel. Musical duo Tomandandy's score, by the way, matches the wilderness setting and mounting suspense in every scene, and the film is also edited very evenly. Mean Creek is rather like the anti-Stand by Me (although that movie has its own dark moments), but in treading its territory very confrontationally, it becomes a coming-of-age film that's admirably honest and not preachy. Exceptional stuff.