Crazy/Beautiful (PG-13, 2001)

Kirsten Dunst plays Nicole, the troubled daughter of a California congressman (Bruce Davison). She and her best friend Matty spend as much of their time as possible either getting wasted, getting into trouble, or both. She meets Carlos (Jay Hernandez), a poor but hard-working Latino boy who has to get up at 5 a.m. to get to school and who dreams of going to the Naval Academy to become a pilot. Nicole and Carlos are drawn to each other. At first, Nicole treats him like another drug. Carlos has felt the burden of delivering all his family's dreams of achievement. Every second of his life is planned. He is drawn to Nicole's spontaneity and warmth. But he does not know if he is prepared to risk everything he has worked for to try to save her from herself.

Sensitive but highly responsible and straight-laced guys have been falling for sensitive but high-maintenance and irresponsible girls in movies since before they started selling popcorn from theater concession stands. That theme has been played for comedy (Bringing Up Baby) or poignancy (The Sterile Cuckoo), and its appeal is enduring, especially to teenagers, which is where this latest entry will find its most sympathetic audience. There is nothing new in CRAZY/BEAUTIFUL, but Dunst and Hernandez deliver warm, thoughtful performances as the two leads. Dunst is a little beyond her range, but deserves credit for taking on a complex challenge and being willing to present herself as vulnerable and without a movie-star glow. The director (who also did the first-rate docudrama Cheaters, about a real-life Chicago high school team that cheated on a scholastic competition) has a real feel for teenagers.

The weakest points are the cardboard character bad guys (the evil stepmother, played by the talented Lucinda Jenney, is an inexcusable stereotype) and the teen-dream resolution, in which everything turns out all right after a parent admits it was all his fault and sees the light. But that is just one more aspect of this teen fantasy that will appeal to its target audience. Many movies about teenage life feel more authentic to adults (who, after all, create them) than to teens themselves. I suspect that this will seem false to adults, but will seem real to a lot of 15-year-olds, whose stage of life leaves them naturally hypersensitive and with heightened emotions. They will also identify with the way the film portrays the importance (and unconditional support) of friends, the insensitivity of classmates and teachers, and the neglect of parents.