Review of The Last Picture Show (1971) by Matthew G — 02 Aug 2009

Take Our Town, throw the characters about 40 years in the future, make every small-town inhabitant hornier than a cuckolded Narwhal, add a dash of timeless teen emotions, and you have a rough idea of The Last Picture Show.

While the styles, customs, and attitudes present in the film are either foreign or outdated to the vast majority of viewers, the sentiments that the film catalogues and evokes are as old as hormones themselves.

Peter Bogdanovich paints an accurate depiction of the inner toils and passions spanning across multiple generations of small-town dwellers in rural Anarene, Texas. With its nudity and stark portrayal of "socially unacceptable" relationships, the film focuses on the woes of love and lust, although still touches on the topics of friendship, lost innocence, and death.

The Last Picture Show handles its topics boldly and sympathetically, using the sleepy town of Anarene as a microcosm containing the vital human emotions and experiences that we all share.