The 1950s has "American Graffiti" and now the 1970s has "Dazed and Confused." Both are well-developed depictions of life in America during those decades with a focus around high school, growing up and making important decisions about what to do and how to live life. Both also gather a killer soundtrack from each decade and the result is more about evoking nostalgia and showing those too young to know what life was like.
Director and writer Richard Linklater does good work with this film about high schoolers (mostly incoming seniors) on the last day of school. He's written characters that are fun and easy to identify (by stereotype sometimes) and identify with. The plot is just one giant misadventure involving alcohol, marijuana, high school hazing and a variety of "rebellious" activity. It never settles comfortably around one character, giving you enough to get to know them and be interested in what happens to them, but not enough to truly understand them or care about them. Linklater's focus appears to be showing the many ways that teens handled life and how they felt about it in 1976 through mishaps and comedic moments.
The cast is a lot of fun, especially because a lot of actors when they were a bit younger appear in the film: Ben Affleck, Matthew McCounaughy, Parker Posey, Adam Goldberg, Joey Lauren Adams ("Big Daddy"), Anthony Rapp ("RENT") and even more. Nobody's a show stealer, but that's because the film isn't designed that way.
"Dazed and Confused" is just fun. At the very least the soundtrack will have you rocking out a bit. There's no slapstick, gut-wrenching humor, you just laugh and enjoy. There's nothing moving about the movie, but you enjoy the characters and what happens to them. It's a very sound movie (no pun intended, but it works I guess) in that it's just well put together. It's not bad at all; if you don't like it it's probably because you wanted more from it.
Director and writer Richard Linklater does good work with this film about high schoolers (mostly incoming seniors) on the last day of school. He's written characters that are fun and easy to identify (by stereotype sometimes) and identify with. The plot is just one giant misadventure involving alcohol, marijuana, high school hazing and a variety of "rebellious" activity. It never settles comfortably around one character, giving you enough to get to know them and be interested in what happens to them, but not enough to truly understand them or care about them. Linklater's focus appears to be showing the many ways that teens handled life and how they felt about it in 1976 through mishaps and comedic moments.
The cast is a lot of fun, especially because a lot of actors when they were a bit younger appear in the film: Ben Affleck, Matthew McCounaughy, Parker Posey, Adam Goldberg, Joey Lauren Adams ("Big Daddy"), Anthony Rapp ("RENT") and even more. Nobody's a show stealer, but that's because the film isn't designed that way.
"Dazed and Confused" is just fun. At the very least the soundtrack will have you rocking out a bit. There's no slapstick, gut-wrenching humor, you just laugh and enjoy. There's nothing moving about the movie, but you enjoy the characters and what happens to them. It's a very sound movie (no pun intended, but it works I guess) in that it's just well put together. It's not bad at all; if you don't like it it's probably because you wanted more from it.