1) why were they committing suicide?
You're not supposed to know a specific answer, but the movie presents different possible reasons.
2) why couldn't anyone leave town?
Leaving town meant betraying the friendship of the group.
3) what was the whole deal with the website/messaging (or whatever the postings were suppose to be) chat room?? what did this have anything to do with?
It was a way to commemorate the dead, just like the shouting their names. At one point one of the adults (I don't remember who, maybe Sara's dad) tried to explain the suicides by saying that these guys just wanted their picture in the paper; the website and the shouting was part of this explanation.
Why did her boyfriend try to push her way? And why didn't he want her in the "group"?
He didn't want her to end up commiting suicide.
4) what the heck did the kid say to the cop towards the end (he was in a hospital bed)? Did he also try to commit suicide? Did he explain why?
I don't remember his excact words, but it was something like: "We *beep* hate you", the adults, that is. This was part of the theme of the teenagers experiencing the extreme loneliness most teenagers do when they start growing apart from their parents and vice versa. You saw this in the relationship between parents and kids: The priest not appreciating his son ironing his shirt; the father that told his son to pay for living at home; the girl from the gas station who was kicked out by her father (and the teenagers using this as explanation for her suicide); and Sara and her dad slowly growing apart throughout the movie.
5) what the heck happened at the end? What's with the lake? Cop setting fire to forest, why??
The forest had become a symbolic place to commit suicide; he tried protecting the teens / his daugter by taking that place away.
I really didn't get this, but making matters worse was the fact that sometimes I couldn't understand the accents.
I watched it with subtitles, which I can recommend (I don't know if any English subtitles exist though).
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