SUBURBIA
A film review by Andrew Hicks
Copyright 1997 Andrew Hicks
(1997) *** (out of four)
If SUBURBIA leaves no other legacy to American cinema, it will be known as the movie where you can see Cory from "My Two Dads" fully naked. Yes, TV's "Cory," Giovanni Ribisi and six other young talents bring Eric Bogosian's play to life in this Richard Linklater film. In SUBURBIA, Linklater successfully combines elements of his earlier three films -- the aimlessness of SLACKER, the fun of DAZED AND CONFUSED and the thoughtful dialogue of BEFORE SUNRISE.
Ribisi is Jeff, the leader of a group of losers whose days consist of unemployment or low-paying jobs and whose nights are dominated by drinking beer and loitering in convenience store parking lots. There's a whole roster of Generation X angst here, most of them with stupid names. Sooze (Amie Carey) is Jeff's girlfriend, a performance artist who delivers an anti-testosterone manifesto called "Burger, Part I" at the beginning.
Her friend Bee-Bee (Dina Spybey) is a recovering alcoholic and Tim (Nicky Katt) is a discharged Air Force officer on his way to becoming one. Then there's Buff (Steve Zahn), whose intellect is anything but. He's the token clown of the group, the kind of guy who will say or do anything crazy for a laugh. The fact that he's either drunk, stoned or both most of the time feeds the lack of inhibition.
As the group of friends stands outside the convenience store, we meet another of SUBURBIA's central characters, Naseer (Ajay Naidu). He's the Pakistani night clerk of the c-store, who in the beginning is made out to be the Mr. Roper or Gale Gordon-type foil to the kids, the guy who will come out and chase them away whenever they start to act immature. As the movie goes on, we realize Naseer is the voice of responsibility and far closer to the American ideal than these five white kids who were born here.
The movie would be almost plotless without the arrival of Pony (Jayce Bartok), the one friend in the bunch who has done anything with his life. He's on his way to becoming a rock star (with more than 90,000 units sold already!) and incites various responses from the friends. Tim is jealous and pissed at the MTV commercialization of life, Sooze begins to lust after him and Jeff suddenly realizes he's accomplished nothing in life. Pony's sexy publicist (Parker Posey, who is now by act of Congress required to be in every low-budget indie opus) also incites various unprintable responses from Buff.
SUBURBIA seems like the setup for a typical, party-all-night comedy about a bunch of teenagers. Linklater did it well once with DAZED AND CONFUSED, but digs deeper here. The Bogosian screenplay is dark and ultimately rather depressing, a lot like his cynical script for TALK RADIO. Anyone between the ages of 16 and 30 will realize the characters depicted in SUBURBIA aren't far from the truth and neither are the problems they either address or try to ignore. I liked it.
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