Smithereens

Things to be aware of: This movie is a downer.

This movie is interminably slow at times. Feel free to skip forward with the remote. There is not a lot of plot to miss.

Having offered those two disclaimers, this movie is definitely worth watching if you are inclined towards depressing tales of urban outcasts. Like most, this one centers around a subculture, but is really about the kind of tragic dreamers that seem drawn to failure like moths to a porch light.

What makes this story so compelling in spite of the rather amateurish acting and film-making is the gradual, offhand, and absolutely realistic ways in which the different characters casually dig themselves into ever more inescapable holes.

This is a story not about the 80s or punk rock, it's a story about young people with unfocused ambition who are sucked in by the glamor of the scene, whatever it may be. These are the fashion victims we've all known: people who have a new best friend every week, with whom are going to write a screenplay, go on a road trip, start a band, whatever. The people who are too busy and too cool to be cared about unless you're going to make them famous, people who do not realize that the glittering lights of the city at night are just stores and bars, who keep thinking that one of them is going to turn out to be magic, who see everyday life as some kind of hoax that they won't be conned into falling for.

What is beautiful about "Smithereens" is the perfect depiction of the blind, frantic pursuit of a better, purer, more exciting life that leads to the opposite. The sad, romantic naiveté that looks for rescue in a bar at 2am is a target for every kind of leech whose belief in magic has burned out and turned to cynical opportunism. The neophyte victims gradually and seamlessly become predators themselves, preying on others who are looking for late-night magic. Dreams of romance, fame, and adventure become grubbing squabbles over sex and money and these dreamers don't even see it happening until, disdainful of everything, they end up with nothing.

There's something about black and white checkered miniskirts in 1982 that sums up an entire era.

"Smithereens" documents a brief history of an archetype that many are familiar with: the Hip Urban Street Punk on a Path to Nowhere.

What makes this film superb is that it treats the subject with a frank honesty rarely seen in such a genre. No happy endings, convoluted plot points or moral judgments are imposed upon Wren as she bumbles about New York trying to make her way.

She is neither likable nor despicable. Belonging to no demographic, she creates her own. She has vague desires, but no goals. And as such an aimless character, the film's closing shot is quite perfect.

"Smithereens" is an engaging, refreshingly stark 'documentary' that does not gloss over its themes with the glitz and glitter otherwise prevalent in the early 80's. It successfully encapsulates a time and a lifestyle rarely portrayed correctly, except maybe in "Sid & Nancy".

We know people like this: rootless, aimless, self-absorbed, and using. This is a realistic portrait of such a young woman who, when everything smashes to "smithereens," may or may not have an epiphany, in an ending reminiscent of the last frame in 400 Blows. Great directorial debut.

i quite disagree with "dehlia"'s comment, this movie is anything but dull. It is an excellent film that does seemingly document the early new york style of punk/new wave rock and it's main character Wren who is as mentioned on a road to nowhere. The film comes off as a really excellent student feature, and it was the first film by the director of Desperately Seeking Susan and She -Devil. You can definitely see remnants of the Wren character in the character Madonna plays in "susan" and the film doesn't have a big sappy ending which is what makes it so interesting, it starts off like a comedy and then reveals itself as a more serious drama. It reminded me a great deal of the films of the French New Wave. Definitely worth seeing.

A lot of the reviewers focus on the waning punk scene of the Village in the early 80s, but this is really irrelevant to the movie. Wren, our heroine, is just one of thousands since the 1920s looking for "the dream" of success while living in a trash can or other men's pants. Susan Seidelman did an outstanding job of capturing the desperation, the hopelessness, the lies, the dirt, and the total narcissism required of pursuing "the dream". Aptly, in one scene we see anti-hero Eric's room mate reading a comic called "Despair". While I myself was once a musician in NY (but an hour north of the city), being awake for days going from work to practice to gigs and back to work again, I had long ago disabused myself the idea of "the dream" - I had decided I enjoyed eating and sleeping in my own home more important. Playing music was for fun. But I played with people exactly like this, including a female lead singer who had once led exactly a Wren-ful life of sleeping in the street or some guy's van just to survive. I even had my own situation as a skull full of mush where I found myself dragging a suitcase and a portable TV down a street 1500 miles from home with exactly enough money for a ticket back - leaving me with a dollar to last me three days, with which is more than Wren ended up. That final shot encapsulates the nightmare masquerading as a dream perfectly. "Smithereens" is nothing new - there are scores of movies since the silent era-days exactly like this. But capturing that mood so perfectly is pure art. BTW - did anyone catch Chris Noth (of "Law and Order" fame) in the van?