It might be dedicated to the memory of John Hughes, but Anthony Burns' debut film "Skateland" owes a good deal to those more recent slices of teendom "Dazed and Confused" and "Adventureland" — movies that focus more on mood and texture and are less hungry than Hughes' were for laughs to dispel the ache of beautiful moments that disappear almost as quickly as they materialize.
Both of those films are worthy models, and if "Skateland" falls short of them it's hardly a damnable failing. More likable than it is convincing, the sweetly low-key work suggests a filmmaker who might have good movies in him if he gets another chance.
Set in the early 1980s, the story bears a number of superficial similarities to the recent "Take Me Home Tonight." The protagonist, Shiloh Fernandez's Ritchie, has brains and heart but is frustrating his family by doing nothing with his potential. Still living at home when he should have ventured into the world (as his best friend has, to mixed results), he faces a possible turning point when an old crush returns to town.
Same plot, completely different attack. Where "Take Me Home" echoes the commercial teen comedies of the period, the small-town-Texas-set "Skateland" borrows from Richard Linklater's playbook, weaving the camera through beer busts as if we were part of them, pausing to overhear absurd conversations or witness confrontations both petty and overblown.
But Burns doesn't have a cast as magical as Linklater's — or maybe he doesn't have his predecessor's knack for getting the most out of still-green actors. The hit-and-miss screenplay could use an ensemble with a better sense of timing; in many scenes here, the rhythm is all that's missing.
Burns and his co-writers veer midway through, adding tragedy to the commonplace losses its characters are coping with. The weight of this familiar formula drags it a bit, but the film never sinks, staying afloat long enough to reach an ending that, finally, shows a sentimental streak much more reminiscent of a "Breakfast Club" world than of the ambiguous one faced by Randall "Pink" Floyd and his friends.
