Is That All There Is?

Rating: Null/10 (11 March 2000)

I waited a long time to see this as nothing I heard about the film seemed interesting. Now, I am glad I waited and went to the less expensive matinee.
I am left feeling that America has an awfully short memory. There is nothing in this film that hasn't been done, story-wise, before. A lot of the themes seemed to be left over from an earlier age. Vacuous teens and the pathetic lives of the materialistic middle-class were done to death in the sixties and seventies, with better sex too. I had hoped to see something more original but I guess a lot of very young movie goers will never see all the old films so this is their introduction to some very tired, overworked old themes. That left me wondering out loud what all the hoopla has been about, so I tried to find something redeeming here.
The director did a good job with the material he had. Not too hard to stand above that script. (music, costumes and sets were mundane, nothing striking, but well executed for the setting.)
The acting was the one saving grace. Spacey and Benning played characters I have known. They gave realism to the pathos. Their portrayals with the material they were handed was excellent. The real standouts (because of their newness) were the younger actors and actresses (ladies, there is nothing wrong with being female).
Wes Bently showed real talent in his restrained portrayal of the edgy - otherwise stereotypical - young rebel. He saved what could have been a joke.
There has been a lot of talk about Mena Suvari in this film. She was OK, but nothing to live up to all the hype, foul mouth notwithstanding. (Note: I am fully aware that hoards of young girls now talk like this character. It is not cute or funny, it's kind of pathetic, which was the point I suppose.)
The real shining talent here was Thora Birch as Jane. She managed to breath what little life there was into this film while managing to look much better than Suvari doing it; no mean feat. She is stunning in both talent and beauty and there is a great future for this fine young talent, as well as the others.
Chris Cooper's portrayal was true to the script, I am sure, but it left me with "Huge Hollywood Stereotype" running through my mind. His acting was excellent, the script wasn't up to what he brought to it. The character was disappointing, in the least. Allison Janney as his very disturbed wife was a little over the top too. It left me thinking the screenwriter and director were both really straining to paint villainy with these two characters. It smelled. Has no one heard of originality? Nicholson did the last credible evil Marine Colonel. There may never be another.
That about does it for me. I know I sat near the rear of the theater and saw four couples leave shortly after the garbage mouth scene from Suvari. I think she did it well, though. Too bad this is what we have degenerated to. She doesn't represent some far-out rebel, but a main-stream young woman. How sad.
As for the film's theme, decadent America has been done to death, so forget it and look for something new, will ya. I would have even liked to see Benning naked more than Suvari, at least that might have been more real and seemed less crude, crass, exploitative and pedophiliac. Besides, she's every bit as beautiful as the younger girls in this film.