Down in the Valley (2005)

Edward Norton is definitely a reason to watch a movie. In this one he's a 30-something drifter, Harlan, who begins a relationship with a teen-aged Tobe (short for October, apparently--played by Evan Rachel Wood). She invites him to the beach with her friends in a moment of teen-aged rebellion and it all goes downhill from there. The thing is that he thinks he's a cowboy. In what I assume is the mid to late 1990s (the movie was made in 2005 but no cell phones show up so I'm guessing it must be earlier), in the San Fernando Valley (ie, anytime you hear anyone from/in LA say "the Valley"). Right. So he's not so much a cowboy but he wanders around in jeans, white shirt, boots, and hat. Talks with a twang. Carries two pistols. Claims to have worked on ranches and to be from South Dakota. Tobe is enamoured with him and continues to rebel while her younger brother (Lonnie, played by Rory Culkin) is also attracted to the idea of him. Lonnie is a bit timid and his father (Wade, played by David Morse) isn't so great at the parenting in terms of ego-boosting. Anyway, Wade eventually forbids Tobe from seeing Harlan but Harlan is convinced they are meant for each other and it all starts to go wrong.

It's a good movie but with one strange insertion of Hasidic Jews. There is a large population in LA but the way they "fit" into the story is that Harlan writes letters to "Joe," whom we never meet, twice in the film. He then goes to LA proper, goes to a synagogue, gets kicked out, and then breaks into a Jewish home, steals a menorah among other things, and leaves a letter for "Joe" and refers to "Joe" as his father. We get the idea (from Harlan who is unreliable at best) that his father left him when he was young but I don't know if we are to assume that his father left him to join the Hasidic community. This seems unlikely to me as well as random and unnecessary in the course of the film itself.

Otherwise, it's a good movie. Maybe not one to actively seek out but definitely one to watch if you come across it.