So much average

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Absolutely Fantastic

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

I love love love this film. Susan Seidelman showing massive potential. Perhaps because this was her first film, we get to meditate within the extremely stark minimalism that so completely captures The Scene. Lots of reviewers have incorrectly alluded to the "punk rock" scene--this is NYC well past the heyday of '77. This is not the noisy brash Ramones-fueled mania of NYC punk rock; rather this is the entirely anodyne No Wave scene. And anodyne is what we get in Wren, the well-cast heroine.Rather than dwell on the plot/theme, I find myself picking apart the amazing costume, set dressing, locations and music/score because Seidelman absolutely gets it right. And getting something as preciously cool as an underground fashion/art/music scene right is really difficult, yet Seidelman, with refreshing restraint, really lives within this world.Wren's whole look is so spot on--her skinnyness, choppy red hair, statement shades and those clothes...that iconic first look with the vinyl herringbone mini with colorblocked shell and belt, ripped fishnets and Capezio "character" dance shoes is exactly what a downtown army of cool chicks was wearing back then. Her other outfits let you know how important style is to the superficial Wren, and to that whole world of No Wave hipsters who haunt the Peppermint Lounge.Lee Quinones is credited with graffiti, and the van as well as the wall behind it serve as super minimal set dressing that perfectly ties in with the mood. I also love it when Wren does her own graffiti, spraypainting her name with a long tail leading to a paint-circled flyer with her image--very cool.The music is memorable as well--I'd love to get my hands on a soundtrack. Besides the Feelies' score, there are so many great tracks, especially the Richard Hell/Voidoids track, and one of my all-time favorite NYC No Wave bands, ESG with "Moody". That hypnotic song practically defines that era.Reading the credits is great fun, as Seidelman gathered a cast of thousands of downtown/Village denizens for both acting and production roles. It is this skill for gathering together this kind of hard-to-find talent from outside the film industry to create something 100% authentic that makes Seidelman such a good director; her instincts in this first outing are solid.

Susan Seidelman seems to have had a decent career with a few top notch credits under her belt. I'm certainly glad she bounced back from this film which seems to have its admirers. I'm not one of them.I've seen better acting in high school plays than I did in Smithereens. The plot such as it is involved young Susan Berman who is ambitious to make it in the world of music and is willing to do just about anything to get there. She even rejects the sincere advances of a young artist who is living out of his van off the East River played by Brad Rijn.Young Mr. Rijn contributes the worst performance in the film, in fact one of the worst acting jobs I've seen in a long time. No wonder he's not gone anywhere.I will say that Seidelman's eye for the camera is a good one in capturing the familiar East Village locations where the film was mostly shot. But her work with her live performers didn't measure up. I'm not sure she had that much raw material to work with.Look fast and you'll see a very young Christopher Noth before Law and Order and Sex in the City as a street hustler.If you like punk rock, you might sit through this for the soundtrack. I'll stick to Bing Crosby.

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.

(SPOILERS, kind of)I love this movie. Susan Berman plays Wren, a trash queen who finds herself homeless and living in a van with her new admirer, Paul, as she attempts to shove her way into punk rock with Eric (Richard Hell), who isn't exactly a great guy to trust.This is a great movie if you're just tired of nice settings, peppy protagonists, and happy endings, or if you're a lover of punk and all its forms. For those in the first group, the film is full of humor but at the expense of the sympathetic but questionable characters. It makes you feel for even those who most would classify as not deserving sympathy, like the hooker who offers Paul a blow job and a tuna sandwich in return for being allowed to sit in his van and keep warm. It ends on such a down note, too. If you're a huge fan of punk rock, this kind of movie really shows the commercialization of it at the end of the 70s and the early 80s and the fact that it was all just a big messed up corporation by 1985. Wren sees it as her big break and a way to make loads of money and be famous, and that really misses the point of punk.Of course, I doubt thats how the film was intended, but who cares, everybody loves self-interpretation. I'd recommend this movie to anyone with about an hour and a half of free time. or something.