Director Matthew Hoge on the set of his first feature film, which received wide acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival and is currently in theaters.

Watching Matthew Hoge and Jena Malone amble over to their eagerly waiting interviewers in the lobby of Boston’s Ritz-Carlton, it is immediately apparent that working on the set of Hoge’s film The United States of Leland was a genuine bonding experience. They’re laughing and poking each other, and when they sit down, and immediately extend their warm rapport to the panel of expectant reporters. “Where are you guys from?” asks Hoge. “We’re curious.”

At first glance it’s hard to believe that this Converse-clad young man, face slightly unshaven and glasses perched, is the driver behind the wheel of the much-hyped indie. Hoge certainly chose a doosy for his first major foray into directing and writing, but as he sits down and begins to talk, it becomes apparent that he knew exactly what he was getting into. Having taught for a couple years in a juvenile hall system in Los Angeles, Hoge could base the movie’s titular protagonist on kids he knew personally.

Leland, played by rising star Ryan Gosling (The Believer), is a teenage killer, the child of a stable suburban home who commits the unthinkably brutal act of killing the autistic brother of his girlfriend, played by Jena Malone.

“I met a kid who had stabbed his mother like 50 times or something,” says Hoge, sitting forward in his chair, “and that’s all he is now, in the eyes of the system, in the eyes of everyone around him, that’s what he is, and there was so much more to him than that.”

Hoge, a native of Colorado, was working as a teacher in the junvenile detention center when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed their classmates and teachers at Columbine High School in his home state. He was immediately interested in the media attention the killers received, and how the town of Littleton unraveled. He began writing soon afterwards, and his earnestness as he describes the writing process and Leland’s character reveals a true sense of advocacy for kids who are robbed of their humanity from the public.

“It’s just this total fallacy that you can define a life based on one action,” he says, sitting back resignedly. “They know that no matter what reasons they come up with it’s never going to equal a justification for what they’ve done.”

While the problem of presenting the murderer in a highly sympathetic light has been hotly contested by mothers of autistic children on message boards all over the Internet, Hoge seems uninterested in situating his film in line with Bowling for Columbine or any similarly polemical works. “It’s a film more than it’s a message,” he says.

The most obvious stand-in for Hoge himself in Leland seems to be Pearl (Don Cheadle), a juvenile prison teacher who befriends the incarcerated Leland. When an interviewer asks which character Hoge related to most, the nearby Malone cracks a smile.

“Oh, I bet I can guess,” she says playfully. “I bet you’d be wrong,” replies Hoge, and she is. It’s not Pearl, but rather Leland’s expat father Albert, who, having abandoned his family to live and write in France, returns after the murder. Though the motivations of Albert, portrayed with steely sullenness by Kevin Spacey, are unclear, there are allusions that he may smell material for a new novel.

Spacey, who additionally took on the duties of executive producer, appears only briefly in the film, but for many viewers leaves the most memorable impression. “Nobody really says anything negative about Leland,” Hoge says. “But a lot of people say, ‘Oh God, Albert, what a terrible person,’ and I feel like ‘No, not at all,’ and I sort of get where he’s coming from.”

Hoge admits to feeling a deep connection to all three of the male leads —Leland, Pearl and Albert. “I think they sort of form this triangle. They’re all to some degree writers, that’s how they interact with the world. It’s various levels of this idea, of what’s more important and what do you value more, art or life, and the relationships that you have, and issues of exploitation.”

Malone, who until now has interrupted only with laughter, is confronted with a similar question on how she related to her character, Leland’s heroin-addicted girlfriend and sister of the victim. “Funny you should ask,” she jokes, eyes darting around the circle of reporters, “because I had them give me my paycheck in needles.”

She admits that the “young teenage girl who does a lot of drugs” is a character that has been explored a lot in recent films, not least of all by herself, but says that all she’s looking for is an honest depiction of adolescence.

“When I read something that’s truthful, that’s all it needs to be. It’s doesn’t need to be flashy,” she says. “There’s just so many films out there that I don’t understand who they’re portraying when they’re showing teenagers, because it’s no one I know, or who I’ve ever met.”

Malone, whose previous credits include Donnie Darko and The Secret Lives of Altar Boys, seems concerned with speaking directly to her viewers and providing a positive or elucidating character, rather than demonstrating her versatility. “If I can relate to it, and I’m excited for other young people to see it because it’s breaking down one of the bullshit Hollywood stereotypes that are just bred and fed to us, then that’s awesome,” she says. “Sign me up, and I’m there.”