“I’ve gotta be honest here. This movie made me uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. I had a very hard time getting thru it.
This film is generally attributed to Harmony Korine, even though he’s technically one of 3 credited writers. Pulling from characters in his own life, the film follows a group of NYC teenagers for a day. These kids engage in all sorts of devious behavior including drugs, alcohol, and sex, particularly sex with virgins (which is the proclivity of one of our main kids).
I think what most made me uncomfortable was how casually the kids treated all of it. They talked about their conquests in the same way that I talk about how many movies I’ve seen recently, although I think I have more respect for the movies than they do for their partners. Combine that with their thuggish slang and speech patterns (which is something I generally have a hard time putting up with) and I could feel my skin crawl as I just wanted to turn it off. To be clear, I didn’t want to turn it off because it was bad, but rather because it was so effective. Very much a mission accomplished from the filmmakers. Also, I think the title does a lot of the work in getting that reaction as it emphasizes that these are young kids behaving badly in ways that most adults would never even dream of.
I did find one early scene very interesting, where we were cutting back and forth between a group of girls talking and a group of guys talking. We’d bounce between the two on the same topic, and there’d be such a different philosophy on each side. The boys would say the girls loved something, and the girls would say how much they hated that. Although it also managed to just prove how wrong they were about everything.
One notable thing about this movie is that it was the film debuts of Chloe Sevigny and Rosario Dawson. Knowing them from the rest of their careers, I was able to follow their characters with interest with less negative reaction than the others. When you look at where they started vs where they are now, it’s quite impressive. However, I think I’ll just stick with their later work. I don’t know that I could ever sit thru this one again.”