A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints

I love reading memoirs. I’m fascinated with reading true stories about real people, and I don’t mean it in a history buff kind of way. Some examples…A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (an ironic title but right on the money), A Million Little Pieces, My Friend Leonard, Private Parts, Jarhead, Goat, Running with Scissors (actually everything by Augusten Burrows, and the same goes for David Sedaris), Superstud and Kick Me…I’m sure you get the point, but if you’re a reader, write these titles down! I may be adding one to this list by next week, except in this case, I saw the movie before I read the book. It’s called A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints and it knocked me for a loop.

The film is based on the memoir of the same title by Dito Montiel, who also wrote the script and directed the film. It is a coming of age story about a young man growing up Queens who desperately wants to get out. While plotting his escape, there are many things going on his life that propel him to want to leave but could also keep him from going anywhere.

The film has a raw intensity and energy that you find in personal works, especially first time filmmakers. There isn’t a whole hell of a lot that is conventional about this film. It’s shot with a handheld documentary style that brings real authenticity to the film and the cutting style is all over the place- and I mean that as a compliment - there are jump cuts, repeat cuts, flash forwards, fragments of scenes are teased and filled out seconds or minutes later. Where most filmmakers would hold a dramatic scene to elevate the drama, here they cut away and everything hasn’t been explained in the scene yet, but it will be. In case I’m not explaining myself well enough, Gene Siskel used to say ‘it isn’t what a film is about that matters, it’s how it’s about it’ and that theory applies here. The way this film is told supports the film exactly the way it should. The film is told in flashback, but it doesn’t feel that way. It starts at, what I assume is, a book reading and the cutting style starts to shine through right away. The next thing you know we’re back in Queens in 1986.

There have been a lot of coming of age stories set in NYC and the surrounding boroughs, especially those where the main character wants out. This film stood out to me because of the material. The script is well written. The dialogue is natural and feels authentic but that only goes as far as the actors take it. Well, the acting couldn’t be better. Shia LaBeouf, who has continually impressed me, delivers a truly great, involving, three dimensional performance as Dito. Like Johnny Depp, he is an actor whose eyes tell you everything and never have I seen him in a film where it benefits him more than here. Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest play Dito’s parents and are, as always, wonderful. Robert Downey Jr plays the adult Dito and again, when has he turned in a bad performance. There’s no exception here. He is such a natural actor that he makes it look easy, which if you’ve ever acted- it’s anything but easy. There was a big surprise here only because I didn’t know too much about him, but Channing Tatum is phenomenal. He reminded me of Mark Wahlberg when I saw The Basketball Diaries. He has an undeniable intensity and when he’s onscreen, it’s tough to take your eyes off him. The only film I had seen him in was Step Up, which I watched with my fiancé on HBO. Not normally my cup of tea, to say the least, and I don’t remember much from the movie, but I do remember thinking he and the female lead had decent chops. He shows what he can do here and apparently some filmmakers have taken notice. Oliver Stone cast him in Pinkville, and Michael Mann just cast him as Pretty Boy Floyd in Public Enemies. He also has a role in Kimberly Pierce’s new movie, Stop/Loss and he’s playing Duke in GI Joe. Keep you eye on this kid because if he keeps at this rate he’s going to be a big, big star.

Okay, so I’m going to Amazon to buy this memoir and you should go rent the movie.