Classic Movie Of The Week: Slacker (1991)

Starring: Richard Linklater, Rudy Basquez, Jean Caffeine, Jan Hockey

Director: Richard Linklater

Writer/Director Richard Linklaters second film, it depicts one day in Austin, Texas, following a bunch of 90’s space cadets around town as they spout diatribes about JFK assassinations, UFO sightings, government conspiracies, and discuss a jar that may contain Madonna’s pap smear.

You might know Linklater for his later work on the Before Sunrise trilogy with Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke or for Boyhood. Here he is finding his feet and certainly his tone, though it’s a very different film than those.

What I love about it is that it sums up the 90’s so well, though this wasn’t his intent (it couldn’t have been as it was released in 91, at the start of the decade). All the paranoia about government conspiracies and aliens are here, which would come to fruition in series like the X Files, though here it’s really being poked fun of. It also has the fashion, which gave me a bit of a giggle while watching this. The characters are all pretty useless, pseudo-intellectuals,  obsessive about their theories and ideas.

It’s flows through the day, without a really strong narrative, but it doesn’t really need one. Moving softly from character to character, it gently pokes fun and is often laugh out loud funny.  Perhaps my favourite being a man who approaches a girl in a bar, insults her for being British, then her desire to take pictures in New York on her trip, then finishes by trying to get her to go see a film with him. It’s a neat film, showing a lot of the style that would come to be so much a part of Linklaters later work, and is probably a good watch for anyone feeling nostalgic for the 90’s. It should cure you pretty quickly…

See It If: a must see for those of you who love slacker humour, all things 90’s and Richard Linklater. A delightful, funny film.