Dazed And Confused By This Movie

With twenty minutes left in Dazed and Confused, drunken teenagers tap their keg in the middle of the woods on the outskirts of their small Texas town. This scene is really symbolic of the whole movie.

My question for Richard Linklater: what is the point? Quentin Tarantino, my favorite director, considers this one of his 20 favorite films of all-time. I tried to enjoy it, I really did, but I just cannot figure it out. The ensemble cast of would-be stars is disjointed, with far too many unmemorable names and faces to keep track of. Ben Affleck, as confusingly inconsistent as Nicholas Cage, cannot act his way out of a paper bag in this performance.

I’m not really sure who the protagonist is supposed to be. The freshmen tortured by the seniors? The nerds tortured by the jocks? Troubled footballer Randy “Pink” Floyd? Linklater is not clear about this point, but even if he were, would it matter? I have no emotional investment in these characters, all of them are flat.

The biggest problem I have with this movie is that it doesn’t hold my suspension of disbelief. The famous scenes of paddling and air-raid drills make me cringe; I refuse to believe that people behave this way. The shtick of organized, mass class warfare appears unrealistic. Maybe I’m too urban to understand this movie. I am from the suburbs, as the characters in this film are supposed to be, but it seems I have more of a connection to city life than any of these characters. Maybe I escaped my blue collar, low-class white enclave in time to avoid these social situations. Maybe I was too distant, both in terms of physical and metaphorical miles, from my high school classmates to tap into the supposed teenage truths unearthed here. Maybe I grew up in an age of excess instant entertainment. I’ve never been bored enough to break a mailbox with a trashcan or throw a bowling ball through the rear window of an unsuspecting resident’s car. If this movie accurately portrays the amorality and vacuity of small town America in 1976, it certainly explains something about the current state of adult Baby Boomer culture. Rather than a reminiscent time piece, Dazed and Confused reads more like an historical tragedy.

Highlighting an otherwise dead cast, Matthew McConaughey shines in his breakout role as a pathetic twenty-something stoner who frantically clings on to his disappearing youth. The soundtrack continually steals scenes, countering the lifeless characters with romping, upbeat 70’s rock. In the end, not even Alice Cooper and Foghat can salvage a film with no substance. This is That 70’s Show, but without humor.

The movie does indeed feel like the 1970’s, with perfect wardrobe design and the grainy film texture of stoner hangout classics like Animal House. It’s too bad the technical achievements are overshadowed by such a depressing screenplay.

Rating: 74/100.