Credits Director : Griffin Dunne Starring : Diane Lane, Donald Sutherland, Anton Yelchin, Chris Evans Our Score :

By Clint Morris

It’s as messy as making blueberry cupcakes, yet strangely enough, “Fierce People” manages to simmer away quite nicely.

A coming-of-age story (of sorts), this intriguing beast of a film – delayed for near three years – fixes on a teenager (Anton Yelchin) and his recovering substance-abusing mother (Diane Lane), who receive an offer to trade the slums for the lush confines of a millionaire’s guest-house.

Finn originally planned on spending the summer with his archaeologist father – who he’s never met – whose off on another trek somewhere studying some non-descript tribe, but as soon as the 16-year-old arrives in New Jersey, where the rich Mr Osborne (Donald Sutherland) lives, he forgets all about the reunion with his pop and the studying of the tribes he seems so intrigued by. He’s welcomed with open arms by the promiscuous house-cleaner, Jilly (Paz de la Huerta), adored by Osbourne’s wealthy granddaughter, Maya (Kristen Stewart of “The Messengers”) and seemingly – I stress ‘seemingly’ – liked by the playboy, Osborne’s grandson, Bryce (Chris Evans).

In Osbourne’s close world of privilege and power, Finn and his ‘clean’ mother encounter a tribe fiercer and more mysterious than anything they might find in the South American jungle: the super rich.

The film suffers from an inability to stop relating everything that’s going on in Finn’s life to some kind of anthropological metaphor, but thanks to the divine performances of Lane and Sutherland, it’s an easy-watch (Yelchin was a little annoying in my opinion; liked Stewart much better). Still, it has some tone problems. Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? Is it a satire? Is it a thriller? Is it a “Cruel Intentions” spin-off? Not quite sure, whatever the case, director Griffin Dunne (“Who’s that Girl?”) has to get more of a handle on his tones before he heads back into the director’s workshop.