Mysterious Skin

One of this year's best films was just released on DVD. Searching, empathetic, and even a bit frightening, Mysterious Skin shows what happened when the lives of two boys on the same Little League team (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Brady Corbett) molested by their coach intersect when they enter young addult hood. The greatness of Mysterious Skin lies in director Gregg Araki's willingness to accept a creepy fact barely alluded to in other recent films about child abuse (One-Hour Photo, The Woodsmen): the victims just may enjoy the sexual contact.

I'm no fan of Araki's past films, which are without exception amateurish and puerile (The Living End, The Doom Generation, Nowhere); but there's a grown-up quality and a pathos I would never have expected (and you all know how I love being wrong). For example: Araki's acceptance of his characters' ridiculous passions (third-rate TV shows about UFO's, Slowdive records) is refreshing, worthy of My Own Private Idaho-era Gus Van Sant. We find out what it's like to live in a small Kansas town in which you've fucked everyone at the bar. Elizabeth Shue's promiscuous mom isn't a trailer-trash stereotype; she's an older woman who loves sex and her boy in equal measure.

Finally, it's also got the film music I've heard this year: Harold Budd's minimalist score – ominous bleeps and unexpected swells – underpins every scene.