Suburbia (1997)

Directed by Richard Linklater. Starring Giovanni Ribisi, Nicky Katt, Steve Zahn, Amie Carey, Ajay Naidu, Jayce Bartok, Parker Posey, Dina Spybey. [R]

Aimless, distrait movie about aimless, distrait youths, a much-favored tradition for director Linklater, but as taken from an Eric Bogosian script/play, these aren’t the sorts of people you want to spend a long, wasted night with (or even just two hours in movie time). Focus falls exclusively on a small pack of twenty-somethings who spend a lot of time loitering outside their hometown convenience store and talking sh–, buzzing about the stop-by return of an old friend (Bartok) who got out and (sorta) made something of his life as an up-and-coming musician. Sometimes drifts into pools of insight and authenticity, but even though there will be recognizable traits in these characters for most viewers, they’re neither engaging nor sympathetic, and end up being more prattle than rattle. Like much of Bogosian’s oeuvre, it’s dark and lacerating and needs a compelling point (and point of view), but search the van, the dumpster, the convenience store roof, and you still probably won’t find it. Soundtrack album is very good (several Sonic Youth tracks, plus the Flaming Lips, Beck, Superchunk, and more), but little of it is actually played during the movie. Title is sometimes stylized by capitalizing the second U (SubUrbia) to match Bogosian’s play…and perhaps set it apart from the 1983 Penelope Spheeris movie of the same name.

43/100