Treading uncomfortably between frank depiction of youth and outward exploitation of it, Michael Cuesta's "12 and Holding" places itself somewhere in the middle of other cautionary coming-of-age dramas. The low-budget feature, never quite as shocking as it thinks it is, arrives in the shadow of recent genre fare - "Thirteen" and especially "Mean Creek" are obvious precursors - and continues the trend of spooking the parents of adolescent children rather than assaulting them with the sledge-hammer realism of movies like "Kids." Cuesta, who first stammered into the public eye with his NC-17-rated molestation thriller "L.I.E.," is much more tame here, and constructs a traditional story detailing the way three middle-middle class teens deal with a friend's killing.

Opening with the requisite setup of bully and victim, "12 and Holding" gets right to its sharper edge. Two twin brothers (both played by Connor Donovon), one with a red birth mark across one side of his face, the other identical without it, play a prank on two punks a few grades up. When the other boys threaten to burn down the twins' tree house in retaliation, the brothers think they can stop them by sleeping out in it. After a fight, only one goes. The other boys don't know he's there, a fire is set and the boy is killed.

That the surviving brother is Jacob, who has the birthmark, should be obvious if only because it gives the film an artificial reason to suggest the boys' parents favored one over the other. Also left behind are Malee (Zoe Weizenbaum), the post-mod tomboy and daughter to a divorced therapist mother, and Leonard (Jesse Camacho), the overweight sidekick who is also injured in the fire.

All three have their own way of mourning the accident, and the tonal inconsistency of their stories is one of several glitches the film can't quite work out. Jacob is frightened by his parents' emotional breakdown and travels by taxi to the hall where his brother's killers are held, at first threatening to kill them and later planning to run away with one of them after he is released. Malee falls in love with one of her mother's 30-something patients, who has his own demons, and Leonard refuses to eat anything but apples to the often cruel chagrin of his parents.

Each story comes to an individual climax and converges with the others where needed (the transfer of a gun between characters is a particularly bad sign), but together they seem more part of an anthology than a complete narrative feature. While at the very least they preserve their independence (the typical interconnected schlock takes a welcome holiday here), each individual climax goes to an extreme unnecessary in a movie characterized by its understatement and loneliness. What works is the universal quality of the kids going their separate ways and trying to figure things out for themselves, and the midsection is strong enough to provide the film with a provocative vision of youth that sustains it through the high-handed closing moments.

The disc, on which most American audiences outside the festival circuit will get their first chance to see the film, touts the customary director's commentary (more detailed on this particular feature than most) and deleted scenes, which include a sort-of alternate ending that means little to the film's thematic core. It may not have much on its contemporaries, but Cuesta's emotionally honest depiction of the trauma is effective in offsetting his film's narrative lapses, and the DVD release will hopefully provide the film with an audience outside the concerned soccer moms the marketing campaign so shamelessly targeted.

Special Features: 3 out of 5 stars
Film: 3 out of 5 stars