This wasn't a bad movie. There's some great dialogue, very fine young actors, and watching this I could see the talent that would mature ten years later in THE SQUID AND THE WHALE.
Unfortunately, the characters are more irritating than involving. After a while I wanted to slap them and tell them, to quote Cher's great line in MOONSTRUCK, "Snap out of it!" It seems as if the main reason Baumbach has so many of his characters smoke is the need to remind us that this isn't set at a preschool.
Maybe college was a more enchanted place in 1995 than it was when my wife and I graduated in 1969. We, and everyone else we were in school with, wanted the school business to end- I started kindergarten in 1951, so I'd had a buttload of schooling- so we could get that magic piece of paper, get jobs, and move on with our lives.
We graduated at 10 AM on a Saturday Labor Day weekend, got married in her parents' living room at 2 PM, and reported to our teaching jobs in a town we'd never even visited, 400 miles away, at 9 AM on Tuesday.
Life is to be lived, not talked about and over-analyzed.
The saddest thing is that so many of these very promising young actors haven't had the success the deserve in later years. Only Parker Posey has really done well in mainstream films, although the others have worked steadily in small films.
Unfortunately, the characters are more irritating than involving. After a while I wanted to slap them and tell them, to quote Cher's great line in MOONSTRUCK, "Snap out of it!" It seems as if the main reason Baumbach has so many of his characters smoke is the need to remind us that this isn't set at a preschool.
Maybe college was a more enchanted place in 1995 than it was when my wife and I graduated in 1969. We, and everyone else we were in school with, wanted the school business to end- I started kindergarten in 1951, so I'd had a buttload of schooling- so we could get that magic piece of paper, get jobs, and move on with our lives.
We graduated at 10 AM on a Saturday Labor Day weekend, got married in her parents' living room at 2 PM, and reported to our teaching jobs in a town we'd never even visited, 400 miles away, at 9 AM on Tuesday.
Life is to be lived, not talked about and over-analyzed.
The saddest thing is that so many of these very promising young actors haven't had the success the deserve in later years. Only Parker Posey has really done well in mainstream films, although the others have worked steadily in small films.