Review of Slacker (1990) by Ricardo O — 13 May 2010

Slacker, the first film by self-taught writer/director Richard Linklater, is a film that is seemingly plotless and follows a diverse amount of characters, mostly in their twenty-somethings - much like Linklater's other films Dazed and Confused, Before Sunrise, Before Sunset - throughout the twenty-four hours of the day. All the characters are what have been called as "slackers", people who avoid work, underachievers, apathetic and many times just lazy. They all wander around the college city of Austin, Texas. Notable characters include Linklater himself as the first character introduced in the film who steps off a bus and enters a cab; a UFO buff; an "anti-artist"; a JFK conspiracy theorist; an anarchist; a serial television set collector; and a woman trying to sell a Madonna pap smear, who is featured on the movie poster of the film. The film follows these characters throughout the city but doesn't stay with any of them for more than a few minutes until the camera moves on to another character who is usually just walking by the last character. These interactions are drawn out into long takes.

The film may not be for everyone as it doesn't have a normal narrative structure most are used to watching but the film has a really cool vibe to it that makes the viewer stay with it. Pretty much all the actors are unknown but the dialogue that Linklater writes is fantastic. It touches on many different subjects and his characters, most of which are "slackers", are well thought out. It is shot in a very low-key style and doesn't have a lot production values but it is really smart and the way it blends each of the different characters' stories together. The film was very much influenced by the likes of Luis Bunuel and even to an extent, Jean-Luc Godard as well as a few other great filmmakers. Being released a couple years after Soderbergh's sex, lies and videotape and a year before Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, it's marked as one of the most important independent films to come out of that period that would influence filmmakers like Kevin Smith. It is a brilliant look at a generation filled with great minds but lacked the ambition to actually do anything with their concepts. This film has a brilliant concept and for that and the historical importance are reasons alone to watch. Plus some of the things that many of the characters talk about are thoroughly interesting. It's a movie that is very talky and is reminiscent of some of Jim Jarmusch's films and in some ways even Quentin Tarantino's later Reservoir Dogs. 10/10.