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"I think I've made a mistake."

The United States of Leland takes a promising concept and a spectacular cast and comes up with an awkward mish-mash of a movie. Both excessively explicit and frustratingly vague, writer/director Matthew Ryan Hoge's debut feature talks a lot but says very little, emphasizing a rambling voiceover and lengthy philosophical conversations over characters, which is a counterproductive thing for a small character drama to do. When the movie is working, it's mostly thanks to the slew of engaging performances, which sometimes threaten to save it entirely.

"I think I've made a mistake" is one of the script's mantras -- and it has several -- and after a while you start to wonder if it might be a theme. Certainly the title character, a smart, quiet teenager named Leland P. Fitzgerald (Ryan Gosling), has made a whopper, murdering a mentally retarded boy -- his ex-girlfriend's younger brother -- seemingly without motivation. He says he doesn't remember that day, but that doesn't stop his community from branding him a monster. Even his fellow inmates start calling him "Devil Boy."

Pearl Madison (Don Cheadle), Leland's teacher at juvenile hall, takes an interest in the introverted boy. As an aspiring writer, his selfish intention is to turn Leland's story and psyche into a best-selling book, following in the footsteps of the kid's father, an alcoholic author named Albert (Kevin Spacey). Disobeying his superiors, Pearl begins to have private conversations with Leland, on topics ranging from the murder, to Leland's past, to Pearl's long-distance relationship with his girlfriend.

Neither of the two main characters is able to serve as an effective entrance point into the film, with Leland disengaged to the point of catatonia, and Pearl sleazy and unlikable. It is easier to connect with the supporting players, who are rather lovingly drawn and convincing as "normal" people watching the central tragedy unfold. Becky Pollard (Jena Malone), the victim's sister and Leland's ex, is a tragic figure all her own, falling in with a 20 year-old drug dealer who is turning her into a junkie. Her older sister Julie (Michelle Williams) has a touching relationship with her long-time boyfriend (Chris Klein), who lives with them -- they're about to go off to college together. While the father (Martin Donovan) contemplates violence, the mother (Ann Magnuson) has a more intellectual way of grieving. "How could he mean that much for that boy to kill him?" she tries to comprehend. "He was barely there."

In cases like this, we always weep for the victim's family and tend to forget about the perpetrator's, who may be having an even worse time of it. After all, the murdered boy went out completely innocent, and his kin will have nothing but sympathy. The murderer lives on with a stigma that will never, ever go away, and his family has to deal with it no matter whether or not they share any blame. Albert, for his part, flies into town when he hears of the crime, though he mostly hovers around the local bars and asks Pearl how his son is doing. Leland's mother (Lena Olin) tries desperately to get in to see him, trying to assure an apathetic security guard that the accusations are untrue.

These are fascinating stories, but Hoge doesn't develop them in an engaging way. He is enamored of several themes, but instead of letting them arise naturally from the characters and situations, he contrives the script around them. In prison, Leland writes in a journal and of course, he spends plenty of time reading to us from it off screen. He and Pearl have several lengthy, labored conversations that improbably delve into college-level ethics and metaphysics. This is irritating: The United States of Leland is talking at us, not to us.

The actors save the day. Ryan Gosling is really something else -- if he plays his cards right, he could be the biggest thing since Tom Cruise. The transformation from his acclaimed role in The Believer is incredible -- gone is that chilling blue-eyed stare and fiery volatility, replaced by a quiet intelligence and a sympathy that belies his character's satanic nickname. Lena Olin, one of my favorite character actresses, is alas given little to do, as is Kevin Spacey, but the heretofore vacant Chris Klein surprises with a forceful performance as the grieving outsider among the Pollard family.

The United States of Leland is ultimately talky and unsatisfying, though it's certainly not without its strong suits. We feel like these characters have some interesting things to teach us, if only the script would get out of their way. Screenwriters aspire to make their characters come to life; too often, Matthew Ryan Hoge resorts to simply stuffing words in their mouths.