Review of Nowhere (2002) by Bill C — 05 Sep 2008

Yikes, how pretentious can a movie get? Really? Gregg Araki's portrayal of disillusioned society in the mid to late 90's, will fly over the head of most people, in an Indy movie, that tries oh so hard to be an Indy movie. Whatever.

Despite my gripes with this film, there was a lot of underlying messages I enjoyed about it. The issues of the mad mad world of sexual exploration, egotism, naiveness, loneliness, shyness, madness, fakers, posers, pretenders, and people just trying to hard.

Most of the world in this movie, is seen through the eyes of Dark (James Duval), who's in the most odd of odd open relationships I've ever seen in my life. He's looking for many things in this world, he slowly watches his friends deterriorate in different ways, due to different reasons, and he just wants to be loved.

If you're looking for a clear explenation of this movie, you're not going to get it here. Because, I don't even think Gregg Araki could give you one, and this was his movie.

I think many of the elements of this movie, are teetering on brilliant, but yet there are numerous times it just tries way too hard. It gets overblown, and sometimes downright boring, and almost pointless. Some of the scenes were downright uneccesarry, and while theyre may still be certain aspects of this movie I do not understand, I still believe they were completely non-sensical.

I nearly didn't reccomend this movie, but the thing that put it over the top for me, was the smart use of cameos. Rather than useless ones like we see in numerous comedy, they're put to good use here. Beverly D'Angelo, Traci Lords, Shannon Dorety, Denise Richards, David Leisur and Staci Keenan, just to name a few are well placed.

My personal favourites, were from John Ritter, who plays a televangelist, and I couldn't help but laugh everytime he was on screen.

I also loved the european non-english speakng parents, played by former Brady Bunchers, Eve Plumb & Christopher Knight.

Despite, "Nowhere" trying to hard, the cast (which also included Christina Applegate, Scott Caan, Rachel True, Debi Mazar, Mena Suvari, among others), made it work, and the converying messages it's attempting to sensd, make a spirited effort.

To quote Roger Ebert..."A marginal thumbs up".