Paranoid Park is both a novel by Blake Nelson and an The Film of the Book indie directed by Gus Van Sant. It tells the story of a 16-year-old skateboarder - unnamed in the novel, but given the name Alex for the film - who tries to fit in with the skater crowd and accidentally kills a security guard while trying to board a train. The author has said that the book is a kind of retelling of Crime and Punishment in a young adult fiction setting. The novel and film take place in Portland, Oregon, United States.
Tropes:
- Accidental Murder: Alex murders accidentally a security guard. While on a train, he hits with his skateboard the guard who was running after the train. The guard falls on another track where another train runs over him.
- Adults Are Useless: The only adults featured are either oblivious to Alex's depression, or, in the Detective's case, pretending to care about him to get him to confess.
- Anachronic Order: Alex tells his story out of order.
- Bittersweet Ending: Alex never gets to confess his crime to anyone, and nothing really changes, but he finds a friend in Macy and starts to develop feelings for her.
- Bloody Horror: In the film, there is a scene where Alex watches the security gard, who is still alive, but whose legs are torn off.
- Break the Cutie: Alex.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Alex is a pretty normal kid who probably never did anything worse than drink a few beers in his life, but the one night he decides to venture to Paranoid Park to hang out with the "streeter" kids, he ends up accidentally killing a security guard, promptly fucking up his life for good.
- Although, technically speaking, he does get away with it
- The Film of the Book
- Hormone-Addled Teenager:
- Jennifer. She is a virgin, but she wants to have sex with Alex as soon as possible. After they do it for the first time, she wants to do it again and she urges Alex to buy condoms.
- Alex's friends. They do not understand why he dumped Jennifer, even if they do not like her, because Alex could get laid with her.
- Averted in the case of Alex, who does not seem to be interested in sex.
- Manipulative Bastard: In the book, the detective lies about his parents getting divorced when he was a kid to earn Alex's trust, which almost works, until Alex finds a "happy anniversary" card in his car.
- Never Trust a Trailer: One of the biggest complaints about the movie is that the trailer makes it seem as though the movie is going to be a mystery-thriller, but when you actually watch the film it couldn't be any more different.
- The Place: The title is a reference to a skatepark where Alex hung out before committing an accidental murder.
- Plot-Triggering Death: The events of the story are triggered by the death of a security guard near Paranoid Park.
- Race Lift: In the book, the detective is Caucasian. In the movie, he's Asian.
- Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic: averted; Alex stumbles over his words and does not have a particularly sophisticated vocabulary in his narration, as he says, he "didn't do well in Creative Writing".
- Shower of Angst: After committing an accidental murder, Alex has a shower.
- Visit by Divorced Dad: Alex's parents are separated. Alex lives with his mother, but there is a scene where he visits his father who offers to help him.
