The United States of Leland

The United States of Leland (2003) is an American crime drama you can watch online on iFILM. Writer-director Matthew Ryan Hoge's debut feature stars Ryan Gosling as sixteen-year-old Leland Fitzgerald, incarcerated for a killing that the people around him — and Leland himself — struggle to make sense of.

The victim was the mentally disabled brother of Leland's girlfriend Becky, played by Jena Malone. No clean motive. Pearl Madison, a teacher at the juvenile facility played by Don Cheadle, starts meeting with Leland to write his story — part curiosity, part book deal. While those conversations unspool, Hoge cuts between the other people fractured by the event: Leland's famous, largely absent novelist father (Kevin Spacey), Becky and her sister Julie (Michelle Williams), each carrying their own damage the murder has now cracked open.

Gosling was twenty-two during filming and plays the role without a single loud moment — quiet grief with no exits. The film works as a collection of partial views: everyone has a theory about Leland, and everyone is partly wrong. Stream The United States of Leland (2003) online on iFILM.