Set in small-town East Texas (Longview, to be exact), Skateland is an adolescent coming-of-age story dressed in a stylized send-off to the 1980s. At the center of its drama is the local roller skating rink that is closing, a symbol not only in the changing lives of these graduating high school seniors, but in the changing tastes and habits of American youth. Early MTV flashes on a TV in the background, video games make their way into the home, and the family of the central protagonist, Ritchie Wheeler (Shiloh Fernandez), is falling apart as his mother discovers work and sexual liberation.

Moving with an ease and sense of teenage idleness reminiscent of Dazed and Confused (only more sincere and less funny), Skateland spends much of its time at large outdoor parties, the camera circling round a circle of friends. Ritchie ‘s best friend, Clive (James LeGros), is a failed motocross professional who has just come off the national tour, his career prematurely ended, realizing that all that awaits him is a life of working on the oil rigs. His sister Michelle (Ashley Greene) is wrapped in an ambiguous romantic relationship with Ritchie, the two spending many hours holed up in bedrooms, listening to best sounds of the era (with plenty of vinyl album cover glamour shots). Anxiety comes through the bullying local tough guys and a clouded sense of what life may hold for these characters.

An engaging, if not altogether ground-breaking teenage drama, what Skateland achieves it does through tone. There is a romantic nostalgia to its 80s pastiche, and the whole thing is beautifully shot by cinematographer Peter Simonite. Half of the film’s fun comes from guessing what song will pop up on the soundtrack next, or what album will be sitting prominently off to the side of a shot. But the film is not all hipster visual jewelry; it also captures a sweet sense of life in a freeze frame in that moment before youth passes away.