STREET KIDS DEAL WITH HARD TRUTHS IN `MOUTH TO MOUTH'.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

For the motley members of SPARK -- Street People Armed With Radical Knowledge -- freedom's just another word for not having to wear deodorant.

The group's shirtless manic-depressive leader, Harry (Eric Thal), tells recruits during his sales pitch: ``We want to give homeless young people a course in intellectual self-defense.'' Maybe, Harry says, there's another way besides being a ``cog in the 9-to-5 machine.''

Of course, as we watch Alison Murray's deeply felt freakout ``Mouth to Mouth'' unfold, we get the feeling that we're not so wild about Harry, and not just because his body odor practically radiates off the screen. It's not long before the Euro-based SPARKsters are shaving their heads and being told to perform all sorts of indignities ``for the good of the group.'' It turns out Harry's offer to ``shake (stuff) up'' amounts to little more than bad acid, mondo mind games and a chance to be a migrant farm worker without even the meager wages.

Murray, making her feature debut as a writer and director, left home when she was 15, and her firsthand experience with hard truths gives the movie a raw authority. Murray's disillusionment with street life contains the clear-eyed reason of someone who has been there and done that and realized that you can thumb your nose at conventional living and still contribute something to the world.

The film's most interesting relationship is between its teen heroine, Sherry (the fearless Ellen Page from ``Hard Candy'' and the latest ``X-Men'' movie), and her mother, Rose (Natasha Wightman), an Elizabeth Hurley look-alike trying to do what's best for her daughter but having no idea how to actually go about doing that.

Their push-pull dynamic comes to a head when Rose ventures to Spain to retrieve Sherry only to have a surprising change of heart. Earlier, as the young mother beseeches her prodigal daughter to return home, the two engage in one of the movie's three choreographed dances, in this case, illustrating the characters' frustrations with each other. The idea of dance interludes sounds precious, but it works here in situations where words would otherwise get in the way.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

MOUTH TO MOUTH - Three stars

(Not rated: sex, drugs, language)

Starring: Ellen Page, Natasha Wightman, Eric Thal.

Director: Alison Murray.

Running time: 1 hr. 36 min.

Playing: Laemmle's Fairfax 3 in Los Angeles.

In a nutshell: Street kids look for self-empowerment and find a cult in this raw, deeply felt freakout of a film.