every once in a while and an indie come along that have an awesome cast and a story that sound really interesting and can not miss and but the movie suck . some recent film belong to this unfortunate category be levity and the safety of object and and now here the united state of leland . say awesome cast include ryan gosling and kevin spacey and don cheadle and jena malone and lena olin and michelle williams and chris klein and and kerry washington . gosling play leland p. fitzgerald and the teenage son of a famous author ( spacey ) who commit a disturbing and unforgivable crime ( murder a retarded child ) and but doesn not remember it and doesn not seem to have any sort of motive . don cheadle play a teacher in juvenile hall who be try to understand leland ( and also exploit him by write a book about him ) and and jena malone be his ex girlfriend . we see their deteriorating relationship ( due to her heroin addiction ) in flashback . sound like an awesome little drama and huh . i think so and too . the fact be that this movie be just badly and badly write . the dialogue and narration be painfully pretentious and laden with irritate platitude about life and the character be all two dimensional indie cliche and and while it do manage to make leland sympathetic in some way and it gloss over his crime . for the most part and there no problem with the acting . gosling ( who be oscar worthy in the believer ) be a tremendously talented young actor and but the way theyre write and none of these character ( least of all leland ) even feel like real people and so there not much he can do but mumble his ridiculous line and look sad . jena malone be the most memorable . she have one of the most expressive face i have ever see . even play an underwritten character in a bad movie like this and she can break your heart with one look . when she get good material to work with ( a in donnie darko or the dangerous life of altar boy ) and she really amaze . but this be not good material . maybe after a massive rewrite it could have be something worthwhile and but a it be and the united state of leland be ponderous and inert and and for a movie that seem in love with how deep it be and it really shallow .