PUTTY HILL was a filming "experiment" prepared quickly from a five-page treatment and shot over a period of twelve days when funding collapsed for the more ambitious coming-of-age project METAL GODS (which director Matt Porterfield had been developing for three years) in order to to utilize the cast, crew, and locations director Matt Porterfield had already assembled (including actors Sky Ferreira, James Siebor, and Zoe Vance). The "open scenario" - as Porterfield describes it - uses the untimely death of twenty-four year old Cory from a drug overdose. The day before the funeral, a camera crew documents how the event has effected his family, friends, and acquaintances around Putty Hill including his kid brother, mother, grandmother, and sister. Merging fiction and documentary (somewhat unsuccessfully, as the interviewer is abruptly dropped while the verite camera coverage remains), the film does not attempt to paint Cory's fate - he is the protagonist even though he is not present, as far as the director is concerned on the commentary track - as a product of environment or upbringing. Instead, it focuses on how people with their plenty of their own issues deal with the loss and unanswered - and unanswerable - questions. Porterfield's second feature (HAMILTON runs a bit long for a short) is an intriguing but unsuccessful experiment. We know more about some of the characters than in Porterfield's first film, but we connect less about them (not because they are less likable or of any deficiency in the acting, but because the more characters and the greater amount of cross-cutting between more groups of characters does not allow for the same kind of intimacy. As expected, the tone varies from sequence to sequence, but wildly so in some instances (Zoe and Jenny's search for and visit to the empty house in which Cory had been living builds up an effective sense of dread that has the viewer half-expecting the director to cop out with some sort of post-BLAIR WITCH or David Lynchinan twist). There are, however, some wonderfully moving moments: for instance, the in-the-works song performed by Carole Ray (the real mother of actors Cody and Dustin Ray) - featured prominently in the trailer - the scenes with the grandmother, the karoake performances at the reception, and Dustin's interview melding his true story with that of Cory's fictional backstory. The film should be experienced at least once, however, because Porterfield's ability to approach strangers and allow them to express something true about themselves within a fictional narrative is admirable.