Review of Suburbia (1984) by Robert B — 23 Dec 2011

Jeff: It doesn't matter what I do as long as I don't care about the results. And that's why now, I'm getting naked. .

I really didn't think I was going to like this movie after the first twenty minutes. All that was going on was the characters saying "Fuck you" a lot and flipping everybody off, while they walked away backwards. But from the movie turned into a good little hang out/what are we going to do with are lives, "Oh nothing, that sound good" film. It's sporadically funny and takes some turns towards the dark and tragic. .

I do like the honesty of the film. The characters sit around and the ones that have given up drink heavily and the ones that have aspirations of bettering their lives talk about stuff they truly don't understand. When it comes to these hang out movies, this isn't one of the better ones. Linklater did it better with Dazed and Confused and there are others like Barry Levinson's Diner which far exceed SubUrbia. That isn't to say that this is a bad movie, because it happens to be an intelligently written(Eric Bogosian) and directed film. .

The movie runs a little long for the content and it doesn't seem like they really knew how to end it. I wasn't expecting so much to occur during the last act because nothing occurred during the first two. This is a plotless movie, that threw a lot of heavy issues into the mix, especially down the home stretch. It sort of started to feel like a mess and it started to feel  a little longwinded, but overall it made its points while being funny and entertaining. .

Suburbia is worth a look, especially if you like movies that occur in a day or a night. Don't watch it if you don't like movies that really don't have an active plot. All this really is, is conversations between characters. Think Mallrats, but a lot heavier.