NOT YOUR STEREOTYPICAL TEEN DRAMA.

Byline: Lawrence Van Gelder The New York Times

At first glance, a group of teen-agers growing up in a desert town so far off the beaten track that television remains something of a mystery might not seem like interesting company.

But in ``Desert Blue,'' the graceful literary and directorial touch of Morgan J. Freeman turns these youngsters into individuals rather than cinema's customary caricatures, and before long they manage to command attention, engage emotions and generate curiosity about what will become of them.

In its low-key, sometimes quirky way and despite a foreseeable conclusion, this modest film by Freeman - not the actor but the writer and director of ``Hurricane Streets,'' an award winner at Sundance in 1997 - is a life-or-death story.

On one level, it is a tale of the life or death of dreams and ambition and of the life-or-death circumstances that envelop the fictional desert town of Baxter, Calif., population 87, when a tanker truck overturns while carrying the secret formula for Empire Cola, manufactured in a forbidding plant on the edge of town.

Because the driver, splattered with the concentrate, soon dies, Baxter is quarantined by the Environmental Protection Agency and FBI. All the inhabitants, who seem mainly to be teen-agers, are trapped there, as are a divorced professor of cultural studies (John Heard) from San Francisco and his teen-age daughter from Los Angeles, Skye (Kate Hudson), the star of a television show called ``Maggie's World.'' They have come to town so the professor can see its claim to roadside fame, a towering re-creation of an ice cream cone.

Skye, at first standoffish and impatient to return to her milieu of agents and auditions, eventually accepts the company of Baxter's teen-agers, especially Blue (Brendan Sexton III), who is still coming to terms with the death of his father six months earlier in a mysterious fire that destroyed the town's motel.

Blue's father, it seems, was the spirit behind the giant cone and the dreamer who had hoped to put the old gold mining town back on the map with a beach-and-ocean park in the desert until his potential water supply was diverted to Empire Cola.

So Blue still toils away in his father's sand pit of dreams, painting canoes, while his friend Pete (Casey Affleck) dreams of winning the coming all-terrain-vehicle race, Cale (Ethan Suplee) dreams of becoming the sheriff's deputy, and the smoldering Ely (Christina Ricci), the sheriff's daughter, dreams of blowing up the whole place with her handy supply of know-how and explosives. That is, of course, if they don't die first from the Empire Cola spill.

In the night around fires on the edge of town, hemmed in by the government, these teen-agers drink, ponder their long-range future and consider what they might do if there is to be no tomorrow.

To such big questions, Freeman brings a light touch but an effective one.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Desert Blue'' (R; includes uninhibited language, necking, bombings and a shooting).

The stars: Brendan Sexton III, Kate Hudson, John Heard, Christina Ricci, Casey Affleck, Sara Gilbert, Ethan Suplee and Lucinda Jenney.

Behind the scenes: Written and directed by Morgan J. Freeman. Produced by Andrea Sperling, Nadia Leonelli and Michael Burns. Released by Samuel Goldwyn Films.

Running time: One hour, 27 minutes.

Playing: United Artists Warner Center in Woodland Hills, Laemmle's Sunset 5 in West Hollywood, Landmark's Westside Pavillion Cinemas in West Los Angeles.

Our rating: Three stars.

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Photo

Photo: Writer-director Morgan J. Freeman generates curiosity about what will become of a group of teens in ``Desert Blue.''