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SubUrbia Movie Review

SubUrbia is a 1996 dramedy film directed by Richard Linklater and starring Giovanni Ribisi. It’s one immensely underappreciated movie.

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“Idealism is guilty middle-class bullshit“

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It follows the relationships between a few young adults as they spend their time standing on “the corner” outside a local convenience store. This entire setup instantly reminded me of other Linklater flicks, in particular I am talking about ‘Slacker’ and ‘Dazed and Confused’. However, unlike those movies, this one is much deeper and actually much better. Yes, I’ve said it. SubUrbia is a much better film than these two much more renowned cult films. It deserves much more credit than it gets.

The movie may be stagey to some as it’s based on a play and it entirely revolves around this corner. But to me personally it never felt stagey, but suitably cinematic at times, and this goes in the line of those one-setting movies that are more concerned with themes and dialogue and strong characterization than plot and technicalities.

And it works like a charm in that arena. The dialogue is absolutely fantastic per usual for Linklater. Some have stated that Eric Bogosian, the writer of the original play and the screenwriter of this movie, was not a natural fit for Linklater in terms of style. But I have to disagree on this sentiment.

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Yes, Bogosian clearly brought a lot of cynicism and a judgmental, even condemning attitude toward these slackers. But let’s face it, and this is coming from a guy who is more similar to slackers than other people, this type of behavior should be judged as it’s self-destructive in the bigger scope of things. The movie is thus a perfect mix of a romantic ode to this way of life and this time period and a condemnation by offering a very sober look at it.

The characters are colorful, but some are more interesting than others, much more actually. I found Jeff a superbly written character who is basically the protagonist and the heart of this film. I personally empathized with him quite a bit as I related with his feeling of alienation, frustrations with society and injustice and a desire to lead a different life than others. He’s a great character so wonderfully portrayed by Giovanni Ribisi in what is an incredibly underrated performance.

Another standout has to be Nazeer. This Pakistani store worker who wants to become an engineer presents a polar opposite life choice from the slackers here, and him criticizing them for wasting every opportunity they had got from the start was a great message. But Buff was too over-the-top, though obviously there are people like him, and everything with Tim was overly cliched and unnecessary for this particular story, though even his subplot was well realized. Erica is also not that memorable and Parker Posey herself was wasted here.

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SubUrbia is uneven in terms of the quality of its characters and plot points, but I was engaged throughout as the dialogue is so great that it sold the movie for me. There are many instantly memorable lines here and some terrific messages as well. Technically, the movie is nothing terribly intriguing, but it is an enormous improvement over ‘Slacker’ as it’s much better directed, acted and shot. It’s also quite moving at times and sadly very relatable in some poignant scenes.

Exploring alienation, frustrations with society and the slacker way of life, SubUrbia goes in tandem with ‘Dazed and Confused’ and especially ‘Slacker’ in terms of themes and filmmaking approach, but it’s actually a much better movie than either of those overrated flicks. It’s uneven and less concerned with technical aspects, but the dialogue is excellent, there are some important sentiments to be found here, and the main character played so well by Giovanni Ribisi is very relatable and stupendously written. It’s a film that is maybe strangely condemning to its characters, but that made it deeper and more important. It’s an immensely underrated Linklater effort that needs more attention than it received.