Kieran Culkin’s Performance in The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002) Inspired My First Tattoo

Craig Finn, singer and songwriter of The Hold Steady (a favorite band of mine), once sang that “certain songs, they get scratched into our souls.” I think that’s true of films as well. The kind that may not widely be accepted as masterpieces or even “great,” but they mean the world to us because of who and where we are when they find us.

Since everything’s coming up Kieran this awards season now that he’s officially an Oscar nominee (and a frontrunner at that), I’d like to talk about one of those films that got scratched into my soul the summer after my sophomore year of high school.

Six years before I moved up to Louisville for graduate school, I visited my sister Christy there when she was working on a master’s degree of her own.¹ I’d only ever passed through Kentucky before that, so this was a great excuse to see a new city with a free couch to crash on. She did her part and put together an itinerary of fun things for a teenager to do while I was up there. And she knew that I was starting to become more than just a casual moviegoer, so she wanted to take me to a spot called the Baxter Avenue Theatre (which is still going strong today) in the middle of the city’s artsy Bardstown Road district.

The Baxter isn’t all that glamorous—it’s nestled into a strip mall, in fact. But it was the first independent movie theater I’d ever been to. One that showed indie films, foreign films, and older films alongside the first-run studio fare. Films like The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys. I hadn’t even heard of it; Christy might’ve caught a review on NPR, or maybe she just read about it in the newspaper’s coming attractions. But it had Jodie Foster and that crazy guy from Men in Black and it was rated R, so I didn’t need much convincing.²

Through wiser eyes, I can now see the flaws in this film. It’s overly earnest and sentimental at times. The animated sequences don’t carry the weight that they should. The themes and metaphors don’t run very deep. And some of the child actors…well, they were child actors. But The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys got scratched into my soul that day. Maybe it was because I was watching a come-of-age story whilst coming of age myself. Maybe it was the thrill of seeing characters close to my age kiss and cuss and drink.

Or maybe it was because I realized that day that Kieran Culkin is the real deal.

If you’re from the Home Alone generation like me, you grew up with Kieran in a small way. While his older brother Macaulay was the hero of the journey, Kieran was merely along for the ride as Kevin McCallister’s little cousin who wets the bed every time he drinks Pepsi. It’s little more than a cameo; I’m not even sure he has any lines.³ While Macaulay was busy being the most popular child actor in America, Kieran waited in the shadows, playing small roles and bit parts as his brother soaked up the spotlight.

Then the tides turned in 2002. A few years after Macaulay’s shine had faded, Kieran burst onto the scene around his 20th birthday with lead roles in a pair of well-received indies. He even earned his first of six Golden Globe nominations for his performance in Igby Goes Down, a film he anchors while acting alongside veterans like Jeff Goldblum and Susan Sarandon.

The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys received less attention despite a Sundance premiere, earning only $2 million at the box office against a $12 million budget.⁴ But it struck the perfect chord in me that day in Louisville. Culkin isn’t the star of the film—that would be Emile Hirsch, who was still finding his acting chops—but he’s the soul of the film. His character, Tim Sullivan, comes from a broken home in suburban Georgia and can’t stay out of trouble at his strict Catholic school. But his big heart outweighs his bad manners, whether he’s trying to rescue a wounded dog or being a loyal best friend to Francis (played by Hirsch).

He’s also the kind of kid that would get swept up by the poetry of William Blake. In one scene, he brings a book of Blake’s poems and illustrations on a school field trip; he and his friends pore over the pages as they ride the bus until one of the nuns confiscates it, calling Blake “a dangerous thinker.” But Tim and his friends are moved by one work in particular: The Tyger, a poem that Francis reads at the end of the film in a scene that really moved me.⁵ That scene, and that poem by proxy, would stay with me until I studied Blake three years later in a British literature class. A year after that, I decided that the fifth stanza of that poem should stay on me forever in the form of a tattoo. To remind me that no matter what I or anyone else believes, we all come from the same place, and we’re all capable of the same innocence and experience.

I wouldn’t call Kieran Culkin a favorite actor of mine (yet), but because of that one lingering scratch, he’s among the most meaningful to me.⁶ So it felt only right to celebrate him on the eve of his induction into the Academy pantheon. Sure, he’s not really a “supporting actor” in A Real Pain (a film that’s among my favorites of 2024). And yes, if you listen closely, you can hear the footsteps of Guy Pearce coming up behind him, gunning for an Oscar upset.

But none of that stuff really matters. You’ve already left your mark, Kieran. On me and countless others. No statue could frame thy fearful symmetry.

The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys is now streaming on Hoopla, and it is available to rent elsewhere.

1. Since you asked, I chose my graduate program based on three criteria: 1. Would I enjoy living there? 2. Is their basketball team good? 3. Did they actually accept me? And wouldn’t you know it, the University of Louisville checked all three boxes. (Never mind that they were the only school that checked the third box.)

2. This was not the first R-rated movie I ever saw—that would be either Jerry Maguire or Ransom; I can’t remember which came first—but it might’ve been the first R-rated movie I saw in a theater. (My eventful screening of 8 Mile happened just a few months later.)

3. If you’re among the millions who watched Home Alone last month, please feel free to clarify. (My editor John believes Fuller does say “Wow!” right before Uncle Frank backs a chair into his face.)

4. Director Peter Care did win the Independent Spirit Award for Best First Feature, so it didn’t go totally unnoticed.

5. I’m being vague here, but I don’t want to spoil a film that I imagine many of you haven’t seen. I hope this provides extra motivation to watch it!

6. My girlfriend and I have a trip to New York City planned for this spring to see Culkin perform Glengarry Glen Ross (one of my favorite plays) on Broadway alongside Bob Odenkirk and Bill Burr, so this status may very well be upgraded after that happens.