SubUrbia (1997)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

It's the suburban neighborhood of Burnfield in Austin, Texas. Slackers hang out behind the convenience store that is operated by the Choudhurys. Jeff (Giovanni Ribisi) is dating Sooze (Amie Carey). She wants to go to NYC to do alternative art but he refuses to do anything. Jokester Buff (Steve Zahn) works at the pizza joint. Tim (Nicky Katt) is ex-military with anger issues. Bee-Bee (Dina Spybey-Waters) is Sooze's friend. They come looking for Pony who was Jeff's friend and is now famous. A confrontation with the Choudhurys scatters the group. Pony (Jayce Bartok) shows up with publicist Erica (Parker Posey) and find the group. Jeff holds some resentment as he has a different memory of the start of Pony's band.It's one rambling night in the burbs written by Eric Bogosian and directed by Richard Linklater. It has some good actors. For some reason, I keep thinking of 'Waiting for Guffman'. In that movie, Guffman is a red herring and it works better. This movie turns aimless after Pony arrives. He's the goal and the movie loses its emphasis. The movie would be much better to climax with his arrival and end with a complete blowout with Jeff in that parking lot. The last half loses all the tension for me. The movie is 2 hours and could easily lose some of the second half.

You don't like this film because it's pretentious. It makes a statement that is high-minded and artistic, and it dares to speak the unpopular truth about life in this America. You don't like this film because there's no real action, at least not very much. You don't like this film because maybe the snooty, arrogant immigrant is the good guy, and the "why can't we all just get along" boyscout might be the bad guy, and the really bad guy isn't a bad guy at all, he's just a guy who is screwed, and probably always will be.Sometimes we come by our hatred honestly enough, but where it leads us is a hollow place, devoid of even the drama we wish for in our emptiness. And that's a lot of statement for a mere movie, with people talking, and acting stupid, and doing nothing of any consequence really. This film is pretentious art-house flop for so many, but for me, it was beautiful, and it was only because I waited for my reward, after a long time of wondering if maybe the negative reviews were right, and if maybe it was a piece of crap.Well it spends most of its time on screen teetering on the brink of craptitude; ready to be some pointless, angst-filled pseudo nightmare of profanity and cheap voyeurism, which is all the rage these days, but then it turns out it was something far above all that.It was a work of love. The writer did us all a huge favor, and told us something very simple, and very true, and the filmmaker told us that story without any pretense at all, after fooling us into thinking he was trying for the top prize at Cannes, or just to get into bed with hot French chicks.Life is a gift, and you can use it how you wish.I hope that's not a f*cking spoiler.

I would be curious to compare this with the original play, which I've never seen. Bogosian is a great writer and Linklatter seems like an odd choice to match with a strong dialog writer, since he goes for this numbly, seemingly improvisational style. That style fits this subject matter perfectly well, and he does capture that bored, pointless bitterness, but I'm wondering if a different director with the same script might have managed to make something that felt a little more intense. This movie just sort of ambled along with interesting little bits of drama here and there. It's all sort of interesting, the performances seem pretty good, but I was never drawn into this and I never cared about the characters, although they were convincing.

It was a play first, vey often produced over the last decade. Linklater can't be blamed for the story or any of that. Its a film version of a play.. like house of yes, or the upcming Angels in America, or the LAramie Project. And, the main difference between a film and a play is that a play's script is not up for discussion along with the action as it is not a unique single act, it is an interpretation by a director of the playwright's words. A movie script on the other hand goes hand in hand with the action as it is meant to be created as one entity.That aside as a common misconception for so many people I see reviewing plays like they were movies (leave the script alone talk about acting and direction), I like Suburbia.