Kicking and Screaming

KICKING AND SCREAMING (1995) **** Josh Hamilton, Olivia d' Abo, Chris Eigeman, Parker Posey, Eric Stoltz, Jason Wiles, Carlos Jacott, Cara Buono. To label this the perfect Generation X film so far would do an injustice to this exceptionally brilliant and dead accurate depiction of twentysomethings embarking upon The Real World and grasping futilely to remain in their comfortable existence at college. More like an update of "Diner" with five college pals griping, searching and dealing with their recent shift of reality with some truly biting dialogue and wholly believeable sequences. Written and directed by Noah Baumbach (who has a cameo in the "cow f***er" exchange). Perfect.

There's a lot of angsting and whining in this movie that I didn't relate to when I was an optimistic college student, but now that I too am joining the ranks of the confused and unemployed post-graduate, I look upon its memory more fondly.

Eric Stoltz is very amusing as the eternal student/bartender. A friend of mine is particularly fond of the Otis character, the clown of the film and a master of deflated monosyllabic responses (check the same actor out in Mr. Jealousy - he has wonderful mastery of the trapped upperclass dork). Josh Hamilton does a great job expressing idealized romantic yearning, especially in the last scene of the film, which I won't give away but which is familiarly and achingly bittersweet.

If you're a stickler for realism you might say to yourself, "Yeah right, like these people just graduated from college, they're all in their 30s." If you're the type that can look past the fact that Olivia D'Abo played an 18 year old 10 years ago on The Wonder Years then you'll be OK.

(And if you like Josh Hamilton and Parker Posey, check out House of Yes)

Sophsitication, wit, and charm abound in Noah Baumbach's directorial debut, Kicking and Screaming. It's a movie about life. It's a movie about love. It's a movie about growing up. It's not about growing up in the childhood sense, but growing up as in maturing into true adulthood, post schooling. Kicking and Screaming is an ensemble film about a group of friends who have just graduated college and are now forced to take the next steps in their lives as they emerge into the real world. Some of them cope better than others, but they all struggle to find meaning in a post scholastic existence where they aren't quite sure what will become of them. The film is a sort of stream of consciousness, almost rambling foray into adult life in which we must make something of ourselves. It is a smart film, it is a sophisticated film, but it's almost too smart for its own good.

We learn a few key things from Kicking and Screaming. One. Noah Baumbach is a smart guy who knows how to write and has a keen sense of reality and what makes us human. Two. He may be too smart to make a coherent and entertaining story about human interaction and psychology. And three. Having so many things on one's plate is overwhelming and it causes a film to lose all sense of purpose. Baumbach tackles a lot of subjects with Kicking and Screaming, but they sort of all run into each other and get tangled up with one another that this film loses its direction starts to feel less and less like a film and more like an astute psychological study that lacks any real emotion.

I feel like the characters in Kicking and Screaming aren't as much human as they are simply vehicles for Baumbach to exemplify offbeat quirks and complex relationships. He's created very diverse and very smart characters, but they don't connect on the emotional level that is necessary for this film to work. Baumbach obviously knows what he is doing with this film but he barely misses the mark, only by throwing in too many quirks and too many off kilter personality traits that turn these characters into test subjects instead of humans. That being said, I enjoyed this film for its intelligence and integrity, but the flaws are there and they hold back the film from being really great. Kicking and Screaming would make a great psychological research paper that detailed hypothetical situations and closely examined the human interaction in these situations but, as a film, it lacks the extra step that makes the art of cinema something more than a research paper can accomplish.

You can't diss anybody in this film for what they accomplish. I have lots of respect for the keen awareness Noah Baumbach displays about life in this film. It is certainly a good film and it is smarter than the average dribble we see today, but it's far from perfect. It isn't something I would watch again, but I don't regret checking it out for its fascinating sophisticated qualities.

Noah Baumbach's Kicking and Screaming is one of those rare films that actually gets it right when it comes to understanding the angst of being a young adult right out of college. Baumbach's dialogue matches each of the feelings that newly graduated students go through, but doesn't stoop to the level of condescending. We all identify with the characters of Kicking and Screaming whether it is Skippy and his wanting to further his education because there might be something he missed out on or if Skippy doesn't subconsciously want to become his friends Max, Grover, or Otis. We might identify with Max who blatantly doesn't know what to do now. Max's only hellbent on not looking back on his college years, "I'm nostalgic for conversations I had yesterday. I've begun reminiscing events before they even occur. I'm reminiscing this right now. I can't go to the bar because I've already looked back on it in my memory... and I didn't have a good time." Kicking and Screaming is a film deserving to be recognize as a journey through the minds of graduates and self-discovery of oneself.

Apparently, I watched "Kicking and Screaming" at the perfect time -- not even a month after graduating college. Still, I don't find myself identifying with its characters or empathizing with their struggles other than the basic "I wish I didn't have to leave." Granted graduating college is different now than it was in the 1990s, but if this film were truly very good, it would resonate with college graduates of all generations. The problem is that as sharp, witty and original as the dialogue is, it's unnatural and it pushes us toward nothing.

Fans of dialogue in film, particularly the avant garde approach, will probably be quick to love this film debut from writer/director Noah Baumbach. He manages to write a lot of dialogue that we all think but never actually speak aloud (admirable), it's all quite clever (funny or at least amusing) but his characters like to talk a lot about what they do, which in this movie is nothing (boring). College graduates and friends Grover, Max, Skippy and Otis, all played by no-name actors basically decide to spend their first year post-graduation back at school because they are to afraid to leave. Skippy's girlfriend Miami is still a student so he stays, Otis is scared of moving to Milwaukee, Grover's girlfriend went to Prague, thus dumping him and backing out of their plans to live in Brooklyn together, etc. It's a very indie take on a coming of age story.

If it hasn't been made apparent, there's a lot of talking. You'll like a lot of what you hear and you'll be bored by a lot of it. People just generally don't talk this way, which helps the movie avoid cliché, making it fresh and funny, but also alienates the audience at times. At times I told myself I kind of liked it, at others I wondered what the point was. There is some definite intention behind everything Baumbach does, but he communicates this intention in ways most people won't grasp and it all comes across pointless. Plus, either Baumbach never communicates the reason for the title or I missed it because I wasn't totally paying attention. With so much dialogue, everything Baumbach really wants the audience to understand he must have spoken aloud and so rather than discovering meaning, it comes in the form of explanation.

"Kicking and Screaming" is an experiment, an artsy film that some will love just for being artsy and others will find boring for being exactly that way. Baumbach's writing shows promise, but it also has the potential to fail miserably.