SUBURBIA
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1997 Scott Renshaw
subURBIA (Sony Classics/Castle Rock) Starring: Giovanni Ribisi, Nicky Katt, Amie Carey, Steve Zahn, Jayce Bartok, Parker Posey, Dina Spybey, Ajay Naidu. Screenplay: Eric Bogosian, based on his stage play. Producer: Anne Walker-McBay. Director: Richard Linklater. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, brief nudity) Running Time: 118 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
In the production notes for subURBIA, director Richard Linklater comments on his working relationship with writer Eric Bogosian that "we decided somewhere along the way we were separated at birth," to which I can only add that the nurse in question must have known what she was doing. No two sensibilities could be more dissimilar -- Bogosian the high-energy Easterner and Linklater the laid-back Texan -- even when addressing similar subject matter. subURBIA is a frequently compelling film, but there is a terribly fragmented feel to it. While Linklater's natural affection for his characters' generational anxieties gives the story much of its charm, he frequently finds himself fighting with a writer who seems to despise those characters.
subURBIA takes place during one night in the generic (and poetically named) American suburb of Burnfield, where a group of friends gathers as they have gathered so many nights before by a corner convenience store. Among them are Jeff (Giovanni Ribisi), a cynical would-be writer and part-time community college student; Sooze (Amie Carey), Jeff's girlfriend and aspiring performance artist; Tim (Nicky Katt), a surly Air Force drop-out; Buff (Jeff Zahn), a hyper-kinetic pizza restaurant employee; and Bee-Bee (Dina Spybey), Sooze's friend recently released from a rehab clinic. What makes this night different is the return of Pony (Jayce Bartok), a former classmate now making it big as a rock star and visiting town with his publicist Erica (Parker Posey) for a concert. The friends wander the night in search of entertainment, responding to Pony's presence and dealing with the lack of direction in their lives.
The opening images of subURBIA show an endless stream of tract houses and strip malls, peppered with construction sites building even more of the same. Linklater films it almost as one uninterrupted drive-by take, a numbing panorama of monotony representing a world which seems designed to destroy imagination, and it suggests that the director's rage, such as it is, is directed at the place rather than at the people. The characters in subURBIA were raised by parents who viewed the placid comfort of their surroundings as the achievement of a dream and instilled that same idea in their children. While they realize that they want something different, however, they young characters don't know what that something could be; their souls lack the vocabulary to define their dreams in any other way but "not this."
Bogosian, on the other hand, is far less forgiving. His script sets up a counterpoint between the principal characters and Nazeer (Ajay Naidu), the Pakistani immigrant whose family owns the convenience store where the friends congregate. In one blistering exchange, Nazeer mocks Buff by noting that he will be an engineer after two more years of college, while Buff and his friends will still be wasting their lives sitting in front of convenience stores. Nazeer also clashes with Tim, whose racist tirades are an expression of his twisted sense of the way the world ought to be. It is Tim, the alcoholic who cut off part of his own finger to get out of the service when he realized it was hard work, who gets the film's best line, a brutal summation of Bogosian's disgust: "I'm an American; I'm owed something." While Sooze plays at addressing "issues" she knows nothing about and Jeff strips naked in an expression of divine apathy, Bogosian can only shake his head at them through the words of Nazeer: "You people are so stupid. You throw everything away."
The schism between the perspectives of Linklater and Bogosian makes subURBIA a film of mixed messages, but it is still worth watching thanks to the talented cast members and some individual moments of genuine clarity. Dina Spybey is particularly affecting as Bee-Bee, who struggles against a relapse after an unfortunate encounter with Buff; Steve Zahn (THAT THING YOU DO!), who originated Buff on stage, channels what begins as a Crispin Glover impression into a unique portrayal of blissful oblivion. The echoes of Glover call to mind another film about disaffected youth, 1986's RIVER'S EDGE, but subURBIA is wittier and not nearly as bleak. Though you may find yourself wondering why these characters would have been high school friends, the interaction between them is almost always interesting enough to hold your attention. The problem is that, while your attention is held on those characters, you can't get a handle on what you are supposed to think about them. Critics of films about Generation X-ers often repeat the criticisms of real-life Generation X-ers, that they are merely whining children of privilege who have never had to struggle for anything in their lives. Bogosian is one of those critics; Linklater seems intent on answering them. subURBIA would have been a more powerful film if between them they had chosen one object of scorn: suburbanites, or suburbia itself.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 mocking 'burbs: 6.
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